Universe Collision 3: Rifts of Chaos
by cyberkiller125
Summary: The Chessmaster, who has been responsible for the threats the heroes faced previously, makes his move that threatens not just their universe, but others. Now the heroes must unite to defeat the Chessmaster once and for all. But how do they defeat a mastermind that knows everything about them?
1. Breakout

Chapter 1: Breakout.

Space, it's quite large and empty. But in this area of space however, a lone spacecraft flies alone.

The spacecraft was small in size, looked like it could carry about 8 people, pilots included. It's destination is soon realized by a large space station up ahead.

Inside the small spacecraft, one of the two pilots inside picks up the radio.

"Traffic control, this is transport ship 4528, requesting to land. Over." The pilot said.

"What kind of cargo do you have? Over." Traffic Control replies.

"We have four prisoners, wanted fugitives from the galaxy. Over." The Pilot responds back.

There was a pause as the pilots waited for traffic control to conform their landing.

Finally, they responded "Transport ship 4528 you are cleared for landing. Gotta say, we weren't expecting an intake from you for another couple of days. Over."

"Well there's always surprises. Over." The Pilot responded back.

The pilot who was on the radio began to fly towards the loading bay of the ship, while the other opened a compartment and got a few guns out.

"I'll hand these out to the others." The pilot with the guns said. "Tell them to get ready."

The pilot flying nodded.

* * *

On the docking bay, four guards watch as the ship lands, ready to take in the prisoners.

The spacecraft's back door opens and the guards get ready.

"Thanks for the prisoner's, we'll take it…." One of the guards said before he and one next to him we're shot by the two pilots, knocking them out.

"Get backup, now!" One of the guards said to the other one before they were both shot and knocked out similarly, this time by one of the prisoners.

The prisoners weren't wearing prison garments, but instead were wearing black suits with hoods and masks over their heads.

"That went well." One of the prisoners said before turning to the pilots. "Tell The Chessmaster were in."

The other three prisoners soon exited the spacecraft. One wearing red and a hood over his head, clearly the leader, turns to the three so called prisoners and begins to brief them on the mission.

"I'm pretty sure you know what the mission is but i'm going to tell it to you again." The person in red began. "Prisoner E-2314 is being held here and The Chessmaster wants him broken out. Find out where he is and break him out."

He pointed to the gun in his hand. "Remember to use these, as the guards have a chip in them that goes off when one of them is killed."

He points to the two pilots. "You two stay behind and watch out for anyone else. If they ask too many questions, stun them."

The pilots nodded and the four run off to do their mission.

One person, a female wearing a hood and a mask strays from the group and goes down the hallway that leads to the control room. Eventually finding a door labeled AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY!

Undeterred, she pulls out a device and attaches it to the keypad. After a few seconds, the door unlocks and she enter's the room.

The door opened caused some of the guards to notice her.

"Hey you can't be..." one of the guards said before he and the other guards were shot unconscious.

She then goes to one of the monitor's and plugs another device into the computer, giving her access to it.

"This is Mouse." she said using her communicator to talk to the others as she searches the prisoner database. "I'm in their system. I should know where E-2134 is soon."

"Mouse" eventually finds the file on E-2134.

"He is in Section E. Reserved for dangerous criminals and they're frozen in cryopods."

"Can you guide us there?" The leader asked.

"I can." Mouse says as she brings up a map, and looks at the security cameras to see the 3 others.

"You're right now near section B. Continue forward and turn a right at the first opportunity."

"Copy that." The leader says as he and the two others run forward as Mouse monitor's their progress.

"The Door to the cell block should be on your left." Mouse said after they were past that.

Once the three were there, they found out that the door was locked. Next to it was a buzzer. The leader pressed the buzzer and Mouse unlocked it from the control room.

The Leader and the two other's enter the room and find themselves in a large area with the walls covered with capsules, with the only known floor being the bridge they we're on and a circular platform in the middle.

The leader radio's Mouse. "Can you find the capsule containing E-2134?"

"Working on it."

Mouse works on the computer, using her hacking to override security measures before she eventually access's the pod controls.

Entering E-2134 into the computer, she finds out the pod the prisoner is in and, ignoring the warning's that the prisoner is dangerous, has the pod brought down on the circular platform in cell block E.

The Leader approaches the pod, and presses a button that opens the pod. He and the two others then step back as the pod opens and it's occupant is revealed.

The person was a man wearing a prison jumpsuit, but it looked like it barely fit him on the top as he was fat. He also wore glasses that covered up his eyes and he had a giant mustache.

"Who…are you?" The man asked, disoriented from being frozen for who knows how long.

The leader removed his hood and mask, revealing his crescent moon shaped head and yellow compound eyes.

"Dr Eggman," Earl said staring at the man. "We're here to rescue you. Can you walk?"

Eggman tries to get up but collapses.

Earl turned to the other two. "Help him up, we're going to have to carry him to the ship."

The two nodded and lifted Eggman to his feet while Earl radioed the pilots.

"We have him, get ready for take off when we arrive."

The three then left, with the two others carrying Eggman.

Just as they exited the room they heard a voice.

"HEY, WHO ARE YOU?!"

They turned and saw a guard standing there.

The guard grabbed his radio. "We have three intruders with a prisoner in section 4..."

The guard was then shot unconscious, but the message was clear.

"Mouse, they know we're here." Earl said on the radio. "Can you cause a distraction for them?"

"I'm on it." Mouse said as she worked on the computer in the control room.

She opened the cells in sections A-D. As that was happening, Earl the two agents carrying Eggman were being surrounded.

"Put your weapon's and the prisoner down with your hands behind your head." One of the guards said.

Earl dropped his weapon and put his tentacles up in the air.

Just then the door to Cell Block D opened and a bunch of prisoners came out.

One of the prisoners pointed to the guards and spoke two words.

"Get them."

He and the other prisoners charged at the guards and in this distraction, Earl and the two agents ran, taking Eggman with them to the shuttle bay.

Meanwhile at the control room, Mouse was erasing footage any of them running in the prison ship, putting looped footage in place of it and returning the computers to the way they were before she hacked them. She also takes the devices she used before she leaves the room and rejoins the others.

"What took you so long?" Earl said as Mouse rejoined the group.

"I was trying to remove evidence that we were here." Mouse explained.

They enter the shuttle bay and towards the ship they entered in.

"Get us out of here now." Earl ordered the pilots.

The two pilots nodded and went to the cockpit. The two agents put Eggman on a seat, where he slouched.

"Everyone's here now lets get.." One of agents began before he suddenly collapsed, dead from a few shots from a guard who had regained consciousness.

Earl quickly closed the door and the transport ship lifted off, leaving the prison behind.

* * *

Onboard, Eggman, coming out of his daze, watched as Mouse took of her hood and mask, revealing a pink furred mouse with blonde hair.

"Who are you?" Eggman asked the mouse, finding his voice.

"My name is Penelope." she said. "I've been hired by The Chessmaster to rescue you as you have previously did a failed job for him. You remember Earl right?"

Eggman turned to Earl who was standing there.

"How long was I in that pod?" he asked.

"You've been in there for 14 months." Earl answered. "Oddly enough, your nemesis, Sonic The Hedgehog, hasn't gotten bored because you were gone."

"I want to speak to The Chessmaster." Eggman said. "I need to know why I was broken out now."

"Earl, The Chessmaster's ship is in sight. We're preparing to land." The pilot suddenly said over the radio.

"Look's like you'll have the chance to do that." Earl said.

The transport ship approaches a much larger ship to the point where the transport ship seamed to be small in size.

The pilots watch as the shuttle bay doors open on the larger ship, allowing them entry and they land.

Eggman, now having the strength to walk again slowly gets up and walks out of the ship. Where he sees a man with grey hair and eyes, a dark beard and wearing a black trench coat standing as if he is waiting for him.

"Hello there Eggman." The Chessmaster said. "It's been a long time.

"Why did you break me out now of all times?" Eggman asked, his voice clearly showing anger.

"It wasn't the right time." The Chessmaster calmly explained. "Now I need your help. I'm working on a project and I need your help with it."

Eggman stares at him. "What kind of Project?" he asked

"I'm sure Earl and Penelope will explain it to you." The Chessmaster said turning to the two.

"Get him cleaned up and explain my plan to him." The Chessmaster said to them.

The two nodded and went off with Eggman.

The Chessmaster then saw Dr. Nefarious and Erol approach him with someone with a bag over their head.

"Hello Nefarious and Erol." The Chessmaster said. "What do you have for me?"

"While Earl and Penelope were on their rescue mission, we had a bit of a visitor." Dr Nefarious said.

Erol removed the bag from the persons head, revealing it was Ratchet, who was unconscious.


	2. Catching Up

Chapter 2. Catching Up.

A pair of birds fly over a forest, peacefully. That peace is soon interrupted by a hovercraft flying past them.

Inside, Jak and Daxter fly towards their destination. Jak is piloting the hovercraft while Daxter was in the passenger seat next to him, sleeping.

They were on a mission to scout out a factory, an old KG one. A few ships had gotten destroyed and the last one had gotten a photo showing of supposed activity at the factory and Jak and Daxter were the ones sent to conform it.

Jak eventually finds a clearing in the forest to land the hovercraft in and lands it there.

Daxter stirred awake. "Why are we stopping?" he asked

"This is as close as we're going to get in the hovercraft without setting off the sensors." Jak said.

"So that mean's we're going to have to walk the rest of the way, Great." Daxter said rolling his eyes as they got out of the hovercraft.

Jak got out a map, and pointed to where they landed. "Well we don't have to walk for long if we go in this direction." He said as his finger moved in the direction of where the factory was.

"Still won't be short walk though, right?" Daxter said.

"Unfortunately no." Jak replied, putting the map away.

Jak then went to a compartment on the side of the hovercraft and opened it. In it contained his morph gun, and a pair of binoculars that looked high tech. He grabbed both of them, putting the morph gun behind his back and the binoculars inside a bag

"Now then." He said. "Shall we get moving?"

Daxter nodded and Jak began to walk towards the forest.

"Jak, wait." Daxter suddenly said.

"What is it?" Jak asked.

Daxter pointed to a wire that had been set up between two trees that was just above Jak's feet.

"Good eye, Daxter." he said, carefully stepping over the wire.

The two then continued making their way through the forest towards the location of the factory.

* * *

Somewhere else, in another universe, a very unusual game was being played.

Calvin, Hobbes, Andy and Socrates were in a field with masks on and Hobbes was holding a ball.

"Alright." Hobbes said. "I have the Calvinball and I declare everyone except me in the backwards zone. You must all walk and speak your sentences backwards until someone finds the forwards flag."

"Since when did we have a backwards zone and a forwards flag?" Andy asked, both him and Calvin confused.

"Since now, and you didn't speak backwards so a point off to you." Hobbes said. "Now find that flag."

Calvin, Andy and Sherman began to walk backwards.

"Ridiculous is this." Calvin said.

"Me to normal sounds this." Socrates said.

Off the field Sherman was reading a book with the MTM right beside it.

"How's that book you're reading?" The MTM asked Sherman.

"Oh it's alight." Sherman replied. "Seamed to have slowed down at the point i'm reading at."

"Is it still enjoyable?"

"Yes."

There was a silence between them for a few moments.

"How are our friends in the other universes?" Sherman then asked.

"Well, Ratchet has been sending weekly updates on his search for The Chessmaster. Though he didn't send one a few days ago. I'm assuming he forgot to or he decided not to do one. Wouldn't blame him, the last few ones were pretty redundant." The MTM said. "As for the others, well, they're doing fine."

"I see." Sherman said. "It's been quiet here too. Brainstorm hasn't attacked us for about a month."

"Probably working up some kind of plan." The MTM replied. "Knowing him though, once he does put it in action, we'll be able to stop it in under an hour."

"That sounds about right. Though it would probably be half an hour at most."

"I think about 20 would be generous." The MTM said. "How are some of your experiments going?"

"They're going alright. Had to put one on hold since I didn't have the proper materials for it."

While this was going on, Calvin was walking through a forest to find the forwards flag. Walking backwards of course, causing him to bump into things.

Eventually he spotted a red flag, high up in a tree.

Calvin quickly made a rule saying if he spots the forwards flag, he can move and speak normally and began to try to climb the tree. However he wasn't as skilled a tree climber as Hobbes so he obviously struggled.

Suddenly, the flag began to float in the air, as did Calvin.

"Whoa." Calvin said as he was lifted higher in the air.

He was at first confused at this, but then he decided to use this to his advantage.

Almost as if he was swimming, Calvin moved towards the flag in the air and when he was close enough, he reached his hand out and grabbed it.

Suddenly, gravity returned to normal and Calvin found himself falling to the ground.

"AHHHH." Calvin screamed as he fell.

Luckily for Calvin, a branch snags the back of his shirt, holding him just above the ground, but still high enough for Calvin to injure himself if he did fall.

Just then Andy came up to him, walking backwards.

"Scream you heard I. Alright you are Calvin." Andy asked Calvin, also speaking backwards.

"Not really, I'm hanging from a tree." Calvin said. "Can you get Hobbes to help me down?"

"Zone backwards the in I'm because awhile take to going it's but, Okay." Andy said.

"Andy, I found the flag. As long as I have it, you can speak normally."

"Oh. Well in that case, i'll be back with Hobbes in no time." Andy said running off to get Hobbes.

Andy returned with Hobbes moments later. They managed to get Calvin down from the branch Safely. After Calvin explained what happened, they went back to their Calvinball game.

However, They all wondered what caused that moment of zero gravity that Calvin had described and experienced.

* * *

In another universe, A blue hedgehog was simply relaxing while a yellow, two tailed fox works on something.

Sonic eventually decides to check out what Tails was working on. He has pieces of a disassembled blaster in front of him and was working on a component of it.

"Hey Tails." Sonic said watching him work on the component. "Isn't that the blaster Ratchet gave you?"

"Yes it is." Tails said. "I'm modifying it so instead of a lethal blast, it delivers a shock that either knocks out them our when it hits a person, or disables it when it hits robot."

"Huh neat." Sonic said. "I might never use one of those things, but your sort of the one to make these kinds of things and use them."

"I'm only going to be use it in emergencies, Sonic." Tails replied.

"Right." Sonic said.

Elsewhere, Amy Rose was simply staring at the sky.

She suddenly noticed something flying across the sky that seamed to get closer as she watched.

She soon realized it was a ship and it began to descend down near her location.

The ship was a small one, it could only carry two people and was looked quick. The pilot came out, he wore a black uniform and mask that concealed his face.

"Are you Amy Rose?" The man asked as he approaching her.

"Yes." Amy said wondering who this person was. "Why do you ask?"

"I need to talk to Sonic The Hedgehog." The man explained. "You're a known friend of his, so could you lead me to him?"

"He's nearby." Amy replied. "But who are you and why do you want to talk to him?"

Sonic and Tails meanwhile, were simply walking.

"Sonic." They heard Amy cry out.

The two turned and saw her with the man walking next to her.

"Who are you?" Sonic asked the man. He felt like he'd seen that uniform somewhere before

"Sonic The Hedgehog, I'm Agent Carlson." The man said. "I'd like to talk to you about Eggman."

Sonic then realized where he'd seen someone dressed like that before.

"Aren't you part the same people who took Eggman after I defeated the universe eater?" Sonic asked.

"Yes." Carlson said. "Now let me tell you why this concerns him."

Carlson then pulled out a some kind of tablet and brought up a file.

"Truth be told, we've had Eggman on a watch list since what he did on Planet Wisp. The stuff with the Universe Eater is what got us to act." Carlson explained.

"Okay, thanks for reminding us, but what did you do to him when you arrested him?" Tails asked.

"We put him in a cryo-pod."

"Okay, so why are you here? It can't be just for a simple check up on how i'm doing." Sonic said.

"It's not that." Carlson replied. "A week ago, the prison ship that Eggman was contained in had a riot. We managed to stop it after a couple of days, but when we did a prisoner count, we found that Eggman had somehow escaped."

"How?" Amy asked. "You said he was in a cryo-pod."

"That is true. There's also the fact that the controls to the pods are controlled in one room. It's because of this we believe that someone broke him out. Most likely a group because this required multiple people doing jobs."

"Do you have any idea where he is?" Tails asked.

"No, but that's why I came here. To warn you." Carlson answered turning to Sonic. "It's my understanding you and Eggman have a known history against each other."

"True, and I always beat him." Sonic replied. "So if he comes back, I'm sure I can beat him again."

"If you say so." Carlson replied putting the tablet away. "But just a fair warning, he might be angry for what happened to him and might seek revenge against you."

He then left, leaving Sonic, Tails and Amy standing there.

"You think Eggman's going to go after us Sonic?" Tails asked.

"Probably." Sonic said. "And he's probably planning something big."

* * *

In another universe, a mail truck pulls up to a derelict looking house. At first glance it just seamed like an ordinary universe with nothing special about it. Then the mailman came out, revealing he was a rabbit.

The Mailman gets a some letters and magazines out and begins walking towards the house, grumbling to himself all the way.

"Why do they have me deliver mail at this house? It doesn't look like anyone even lives there."

He eventually makes it to the front step and just drops the mail at the front door.

"Honestly, whoever lives here must not care for themselves at all. So why should I care where I place the mail?"

He then began to walk back to the mail truck, but just before he got inside, he turned to the house.

"Whoever lives there, would you please fix up your house!" he yelled.

He got no response and he got in and drove off, doing even more grumbling as he did so.

About a minute after he left the front door opened, revealing a raccoon wearing a blue sweater, gloves and boots. As well as a blue cap on his head.

Sly grabbed the mail and closed the door as he went through it. Most of it was junk mail but there was one that peaked his interest.

He finally entered a room, which had Bentley and Murray sitting around a table with a holographic projector at the center.

"You got another one Bentley." Sly said handing him a postcard.

Bentley examined it. It was a photo of a brick wall with a mouse head facing forwards sprayed on it. He flipped it around and found it had one word written on it.

SOON.

Since Sly had been trapped in the past for a few months, Bentley had to explain what had happened since he was gone. One of which being Penelope had escaped prison and no one knows where she is. Although Bentley had been receiving postcards containing photos of similar symbols on various walls. Which they had taken as a sign that she was out there.

Lately though, the postcard's they had been receiving had contained words on the back. They were short, usually a sentence long. Last week they had gotten one saying, "I BROKE HIM OUT.". When they got that one, they checked for any breakouts in prisons nearby and around the world, thinking she broke out an old enemy of theirs, but found none.

Not that it made any difference since they we're unable to figure out the meaning of any of the sentences written. A postcard with one word on it wasn't going to be any easier to figure out the meaning.

"I'll put it with the rest." Bentley said as he put it aside.

"Aren't you concerned?" Murray asked. "We are talking about your ex-girlfriend here. She could probably do anything to us."

"I'm just as concerned as you are Murray." Bentley responded. "But we haven't been able to figure out most of the messages on the postcards so maybe she might be playing with us. However, I will admit this one worries me a bit."

Bentley then put a tablet on the table and plugged it into the projector. "Now let's get down to business."

He brought up a series of photos, the first containing a lion in a suit.

"This is Zachary Crowley." Bentley explained. "Now on the surface, he's a renowned collector of art around the world."

He then brought out another series of photos, each one containing article relating to someone claiming they discovered it.

"However after some digging, he's really a con man who steals others artifacts and claims them as his own. The reason those who originally discovered the artifacts he has haven't spoken up is because he blackmailed them into keeping quiet."

Bentley then brought up a photo of a jade statue.

"This is his most recent acquisition. A small statue that was thought lost for centuries, which was found by a new archaeologist. Would have gotten a decent amount of money and recognition if it weren't for Crowley taking it."

Next to the photo of the statue, he brought of a photo of a mansion.

"Now since he stole artifacts from others, we're taking this one from his collection."

Closing the photo he brought up more photos of the mansion.

"Now let's go over the plan." He said showing a photo of guards outside the mansion. "There are guards surrounding the perimeter of the mansion. Murray, you're going to distract them long enough for Sly to get to the roof."

He then went to two other photos, showing a power box, and another one showing lasers surrounding the statue.

"Now, there's a security system in place that, if triggered, will set off an alarm. And the controller for it is underground."

Bentley then put a device on the table. "Now I can disable the security system using this, but it's only for about 60 seconds. So when that happens Sly, you need to grab that statue and get out of there."

He then unplugged the tablet from the holographic projector.

"Any questions?"

No one had any.

"Good, we'll go there tonight and get that statue."

The three then left the room to prepare for the heist.

However, unbeknownst to them, the holographic projector and several other objects floated slightly in the air for awhile before falling back down again.


	3. Meet The Chessmaster

Chapter 3. Meet the Chessmaster.

Meanwhile, Jak and Daxter continue their way through the forest.

They had been walking for about half an hour, and they had come across more traps that they had managed to avoid.

Daxter however, was getting impatient.

"How much longer do we have to walk Jak?" Daxter asked. "Cause it feels like we've been walking for hours."

"I have no idea how much further we need to go Daxter." Jak answered. "And I don't see why you're complaining. You're on my shoulder for most of the time."

"Fair point." Daxter sighed. "But we better not find out we're actually going the wrong way."

They continued walking in silence.

They finally emerged from the forest to find themselves near the edge of a cliff. Below it, they saw a large building that with a ton of large ships outside.

"Well, looks like we found the factory." Jak said.

Jak then grabbed the binoculars from the bag and Daxter got off his shoulder.

"Hopefully these observers work." Jak said as he looked over them.

"Well Keira did test them out before we went here, so they should." Daxter said. "Unless they somehow broke on the way here."

Jak rolled his eyes and began to look over the factory using the observers.

* * *

Somewhere in space, Dr. Nefarious was staring at Ratchet restrained to a chair through a window.

Nefarious pressed a button on his end, sending an electrical shock to the chair Ratchet was in.

Ratchet cried out in pain. Nefarious held down the button for a few seconds before releasing it.

Ratchet stopped screaming and let out several deep breath's.

Nefarious pressed the button again and Ratchet resumed screaming.

The Chessmaster then enters the room and see's what Nefarious is doing.

"Nefarious, that's enough for now." He said.

Nefarious turned to him. "Oh, you again." he said in an annoyed tone. "What do you want?"

"I need to speak to Ratchet." The Chessmaster answered. "And I don't want you to shock him while i'm doing so."

"WHAT!?" Nefarious yelled. "I finally have that lombax at my mercy, and you don't want him to die?"

"Nefarious, it is important we keep him alive. He's more useful to us."

"Fine." Nefarious growled. "Go talk to him."

The Chessmaster then opened the door and approached Ratchet.

"Hello Ratchet." The Chessmaster said.

Ratchet slowly raised his head towards him and stared at him in silence.

Ratchet wasn't looking good. Aside from the electrocutions he had to recently endure, his face was also bruised and one of his eyes was swollen shut.

Finally he spoke. "So, you must be The Chessmaster."

The Chessmaster nodded. "You went looking for me after you and your friends defeated Tenebris." he said. "Well, here I am."

"Where's Clank?" Ratchet asked.

"He's safe." The Chessmaster said. "Weather he remains that way depends on how well you cooperate."

"Look, if you want information about where the others are, you could have asked and not beat me up for no reason for a week." Ratchet replied.

"Oh, I don't want that kind of information." The Chessmaster said. "I already know what they're up to."

"Then what was the point of what happened to me?" Ratchet shouted back.

The Chessmaster said nothing to that.

"Who am I kidding, you just want more information about me. Since you finally have one of us face to face."

The Chessmaster shook his head. "Not that either. I already know everything about you."

The Chessmaster then brought up a file and opened it and began to read off it..

"Name: Ratchet. Last Name: Unknown. Father: James. Mother: Unknown. Age: 18."

Ratchet stared at The Chessmaster in silence.

"You are currently the last of your kind, at least in this dimension, as the others of your kind have fled to another one. Your father died protecting them and you ended up alone on a backwater planet."

Ratchet said nothing once again.

"Now for years, you made a ship and at around the age of 15, you made one. But it was missing one component, a robotic ignition system. Then your future friend, Clank, crashed onto the planet, you happened to be nearby, and well; you know the rest."

The Chessmaster put the file away. "Anything to say to that Ratchet?"

"If you know everything about me, why are you keeping me alive instead of just killing me?" Ratchet asked.

"It's simple, you're bait." The Chessmaster replied. "Sooner or later, they're going to realize you're missing and try to find you."

He then began to leave the room.

"Well you must not be very smart." Ratchet said as The Chessmaster left the room. "Because when they find me, we're going to stop you and whatever your plan is."

The Chessmaster stopped just outside the door.

"Finding you is what i'm counting on." The Chessmaster replied. "Stopping me on the other hand, that won't happen."

The Chessmaster closed the door behind him and stopped near Dr. Nefarious.

"Shock him one more time, then bring him back to his cell." he said to him.

The Chessmaster then left, leaving Nefarious to press the button to electrocute Ratchet.

* * *

Meanwhile, Jak and Daxter were still looking over the factory.

Jak was right now focused on the shuttle bay and watching the activity that was going on.

"Well, one things for certain, these aren't the same Krimzon Guard Bots we fought last time." Jak said as he watched.

The Robots on the shuttle were more humanoid in shape. They lacked a face though, having one red eye at the upper half of their face. And true to their name, they were red.

Right now they seamed to be loading themselves into ships. Whenever one was filled up, the shuttle doors closed.

"Question is, why are none of the ships taking off?"

"Eh beats me." Daxter replied. "The moment we get this info to the City Guard, they're going to make sure they don't do that."

He then turned to Jak. "Can I take a look at the factory using those observers?" he asked

Jak turned to Daxter in response. "And how can I know you won't accidently drop and break them?"

"Come on Jak, where could I possibly drop and break them?"

Jak's eyes motioned to the edge of the cliff.

"Jak, I promise you I won't go anywhere near there if you give me them."

Jak sighed and gave Daxter the observers. "Fine, but if you break them you're going to be the one to explain what happened to Keira."

Daxter began to look for the observers, looking at the shuttle bay on the factory.

At first, he didn't see anything aside from what Jak saw already.

Then something caught his eye.

He quickly focused on what he saw, which was Erol talking to a worker robot.

"You need to see this Jak." Daxter said handing the observers back to him.

"What is it?" Jak asked.

Daxter pointed in the direction he saw Erol, and Jak looked through the observers and saw what Daxter saw.

"Haven't seen you in a while." Jak said to himself as he watched Erol. "But why did you decide to pop up now?"

He pressed a button on the side of the binoculars and the sound of Erol's voice came through.

"Look, I don't care about the fact that we already have more then enough robots ready to bring Haven City down, The Chessmaster doesn't want to deploy them just yet." Erol yelled at the worker.

"But sir, what's the point of having all these ships full of robots if we can't use them?" The worker robot asked.

"Look, The Chessmaster has very specific orders. He want's to deploy them as soon as he's almost done with the rift machine." Erol yelled back. "And if you can't follow these orders, I might as well dismantle you."

Hearing enough, Jak pressed the button again and the audio stopped coming through.

"I think what we saw will more then convince the city guard to bomb this place." Jak said getting up.

"Wait, Erol mentioned someone called The Chessmaster, right." Daxter said. "Isn't that the same guy who Ratchet said was going to find and seemingly knows everything about us?"

"Probably." Jak said. "Ratchet was sending me updates on his progress. Though I didn't get one last week."

Daxter wasn't exactly listening to that last sentence as he had noticed something behind them.

"Uh, Jak." Daxter said poking Jak's leg.

"What is..." Jak began saying before he saw what Daxter was looking at.

Two robots were in front of the way they came, with their weapons pointed at them.

"Oh." Jak said.

"Target's identified." One of the robots said. "Prepare for elimination."

Jak reacted quickly. He ran over to one robot and kicked it, getting out his morph gun as he did so and shot it a few times with it's blaster function. He then turned to the other robot and made quick work of it with the arc wielder function of the morph gun.

"Time to go." Jak said to Daxter.

"I figured that much." Daxter replied as he got on his shoulder.

Jak began to run through the forest, occasionally firing his gun at any robots that followed him and Daxter.

However, in their rush, both he and Daxter had forgotten about the traps.

As such, when Jak stepped on a seemingly innocuous leaf pile, he was suddenly flipped upside down as the leg that stepped on the leaf pile was trapped in a snare.

As a result of this, Jak dropped the morph gun and Daxter fell of his shoulder.

Daxter got up and noticed Jak's predictament.

"Oh no." Daxter said quickly running over to Jak.

"Don't worry Jak, I'll have you free in no time." he said as he began to look over the leg trapped in the snare.

"No, you need to get out of here Daxter." Jak said.

"Jak, I can't leave..." Daxter said before Jak interrupted him.

"Daxter, if they find you, they'll probably capture or kill you. You need to hide now."

"But..."

"Just go."

Daxter reluctantly did so, taking the observers with him.

He hid behind a tree, poking his head out slightly to watch what was happening.

He saw his friend attempt to grab the morph gun from the ground, but it was just out of reach.

Just then Erol and two other robots came up to Jak.

"Why hello there Jak." Erol said approaching Jak with a not so friendly smile. "I haven't seen you in a while."

He then looked around. "But tell me Jak, Where is your friend?"

Jak made no answer, instead he went for another reach for the morph gun.

Erol however, grabbed the gun and handed it over to the one of the robots.

"Reckless as ever I see." Erol said calmly.

He then pressed something on his arm. "Erol here, I have Jak captured. Do you want me to kill him?"

Neither Jak or Daxter heard the reply, but judging from Erol's change of expression, he clearly didn't like it.

"Fine, but once he's no more use to you, you'll let me kill him." he said, clearly dissatisfied.

Erol then turned to the robot holding the morph gun. "Knock him out and imprison him, and make sure that morph gun comes with you."

He turned to the other robot. "And you, find that ostel."

The robot with the morph gun turned to Jak and knocked him out.

Daxter, who was watching this whole time, winced as this reminded him of a not so pleasant memory.

At this point, he decided it was best to hide as they we're most likely going to start looking for him.

Noticing a small hole near a tree he grabbed the observers and ran to it. Just before he covered it with a branch nearby he saw Jak being carried away to parts unknown.

* * *

Much later, at an unknown location, Jak woke up.

"Ugh, my head." he muttered as he rubbed his head.

That was when he noticed his hands cuffed to the table.

He looked down, and saw that his legs weren't cuffed but judging from the length of the chain that cuffed his hands, he clearly wasn't going to be walking very far.

He then looked around the room. It was pretty small and the only things there was the table he was cuffed to and the chair he was sitting in.

"Where am I?" he asked himself.

A door then opened and Jak sat back down and watched the person enter.

The person had grey hair and eyes, a dark beard and wearing a black trench coat.

"Hello Jak." The man said.

"Who are you and how do you know my name?" Jak asked.

"I know almost everything about you Jak." The man replied. "And i'm pretty sure you've heard a bit about me."

Jak then realized who he was talking to.

"So you're The Chessmaster." he said.

"That is correct." The Chessmaster replied.

"I'll take it you're responsible for the things that I went through for almost the past year. The universe eater and Tenebris specificly."

The Chessmaster nodded. "I am that person."

"Just a question for you. How much do you know about me? Is it just my accomplishments or my backstory?"

The Chessmaster the brought out a file. "Let me tell you myself."

He then opened it and began to read off of it.

"Name: Jak. Birth name: Mar. Current Age: 20. Mother: Unkown. Father: Damas."

He then went to another paper and continued reading. "Seperated from your father when you were very young."

He paused for a moment and looked at Jak, whose fists were clenched and was glaring at him.

"Seams like I struck a nerve there." The Chessmaster said without changing his tone.

He then continued reading. "At the age of three you were sent back to the past where you lived there for about twelve years. During then you befriended Daxter, who was turned into an otsel and stopped Gol and Maya. Shortly after, you, Daxter, Keira and Samos were sent to the future where you were captured and forced into dark eco experimentation, which gave you powers, before being rescued by Daxter."

Jak wasn't exactly listening at this point, rather he was examining the cuffs. Trying to look for a way to get out of them. So far there wasn't any visible keyhole.

"Afterwards you helped bring down Baron Praxis, defeated the metalhead leader, and sent your younger self back to the past. About a year after that you were banished to the wasteland because of your dark eco powers. You were found by your father, though you didn't know it yet. You found a way back to the city and stopped a recently revived Erol. As well as the dark makers he had teamed up with. However, your father ended up dying in the process."

The Chessmaster finished and looked back at Jak. "Your past is quite fascinating. Wouldn't you agree."

"Why didn't you just kill me?" Jak asked. "Why did you decide to keep me alive?"

"I believe you are more useful alive then dead." The Chessmaster replied.

"If you want me to betray my friends, I would never…." Jak began to say before he heard a ringing.

The Chessmaster brought out a phone like device and placed it to his ear.

"Hello." he said.

Jak didn't hear the other end of the call, but it was pretty clear The Chessmaster was disappointed by what he heard.

"Are you sure?" he asked the person on the other end.

"Fine." he said when the person answered. "I think what we have is good enough for now."

He hung up and turned to Jak.

"Looks like your friend has escaped."

Although he didn't show it, Jak was relieved. Daxter has managed to evade capture and hopefully trying to find a way to get help.

"Don't get your hopes up though, we'll find him eventually."

The Chessmaster then turned his back and walked out the door.

Seconds later, a few men wearing masks came in and approached Jak. One went over and unlocked the cuffs on him.

Seeing his chance, Jak punched the one that unlocked the cuffs and kicked another that was just about to fire a taser.

He then made a run for the door. Just as he ran out of it though he was suddenly stopped by some invisible force.

He looked and saw The Chessmaster near the door, his hand open and pointing towards him.

"You really didn't think it was going to be that easy, did you?" he said.

He then moved in hand in the direction of the door and Jak was slammed back against the wall of the room he was in.

Jak saw The Chessmaster walk in view of the door. Noticing a taser gun he made a reach for it, but he was thrown back to the wall again.

"I really didn't want to do this." The Chessmaster said. "But you forced my hand and I didn't really have any other choice."

He then knocked Jak out by throwing him telekeneticly towards another wall.

He turned to one of his men. "Bring him to his cell."

* * *

Elsewhere on the ship, Ratchet was sitting in a cell. He had a few scorch marks on his fur now because Nefarious had electrocuted him a bit too long before he was taken back to his cell.

He heard the cell door open. He turned to see Dr. Nefarious standing there.

"So." Nefarious said. "Not so tough without your robot friend and weapons are you?"

Ratchet said nothing.

"What, no remark from you?"

Ratchet continued to be silent.

"Anyway, an old friend is going to be joining your cell." Dr. Nefarious said before hastily adding. "But it's someone you know from another universe."

Nefarious moved out of the way and two robots tossed the unconscious body of Jak in the cell before closing the door.


	4. Captive

Chapter 4. Captive.

In Calvin's universe, Calvin and Hobbes were getting ready for bed.

"So Calvin." Hobbes said as Calvin put his pajamas on. "Any theories about who caused that little gravity incident?"

"Well at first I suspected Dr. Brainstorm." Calvin replied. "But considering some of our previous encounters with him, it's probably unlikely."

"You're still considering him a suspect though." Hobbes said.

"Sort of, aside from Earl, how many enemies do we have active at the moment?"

"It could be someone from another universe."

"That could be it too, considering we've dealt with a universe spanning evil recently."

Calvin and Hobbes then climbed into the bed.

"Maybe you should take the MTM to school tomorrow to see if any more of those gravity fluctuations pop up." Hobbes suggested.

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea." Calvin suggested. "Though I hope there isn't a similar incident where it goes off during class and Miss Wormwood takes me to the principles office."

"Don't worry about that." The MTM replied from the desk. "I'll set myself to vibrate when in your in class."

The two then went to sleep.

* * *

Meanwhile on The Chessmasters ship. Jak wakes up, again.

Rubbing his head as he got up, he looked around at his surroundings.

It appeared to be a small room with two beds. Looking around some more, he saw a familiar face sitting down.

"Ratchet?" he said, recognizing the figure sitting.

Ratchet looked up and saw Jak, awake and staring at him.

"Well look who's up." He said.

"Yeah it's good to see you" Jak said getting up. "Have any idea where we are?"

"My best guess would be The Chessmasters main base of operations." Ratchet replied. "Well, more like ship of operations."

 _Well that makes Daxter rescuing me complicated_. Jak thought

"How did you even get here anyway?"

"Well, it's a long story." Ratchet replied. "Mind if I tell you."

* * *

One week earlier, the Aphelion was flying through space.

Inside were obviously, Ratchet and Clank, with the former piloting the ship.

Ratchet was just finishing up a log update.

"…Still no sign of the Chessmaster, Ratchet out."

Ratchet stopped recording and sent the update.

"You know, I think the last update you sent was similarly worded." Clank said.

"Well, nothing much happened this week, so what was I supposed to say?" Ratchet replied. "It's been three months and we're no closer to finding this Chessmaster person then we were when we started to look for him."

"Well it was your idea to go find someone we have no idea where he is with no hints on his location." Clank pointed out.

"Yeah in hindsight, that wasn't smart thinking. Though we really didn't have much to work on for his location."

"Still, we could have done some more investigating before heading out."

"Look, if we don't find anything within two weeks, we'll just go home."

Just then, they heard a beeping noise.

"Large object detected." The Aphelion's AI said.

"I swear if this is another meteor passing by us..." Ratchet muttered.

Suddenly, both he and Clank we're blinded by a sudden flash of light. When their eyes adjusted to the light, they saw a large ship right in front of them. So large that it almost towered over the Aphelion.

"Definitely not a meteor." Ratchet said looking at the ship

He tried to turn the aphelion away from the ship, but it wouldn't budge.

"Clank, what's going on?" Ratchet said as he frantically tried various other features of the aphelion.

"It seams we are being pulled into the ship." Clank said. "And whatever's pulling us in also disabled most of the Aphelions systems."

"Is there anything we can use?" Ratchet asked.

"Well, we can lock the cockpit."

"Why is it whenever some advanced vehicle gets disabled, it's always the most mundane feature that somehow remains active."

The Aphelion continued to be pulled towards the ship as a series of doors opened.

The Aphelion entered the door and both Ratchet and Clank found themselves in an area that looked like a shuttle bay, and it was surrounded by people wearing combat suits, aliens and robots.

"Well." Ratchet said looking at all the figures in the room. "I'm suddenly glad we can still lock the cockpit."

"I recognize some of those aliens." Clank said looking around. "Aren't they the zokians from Calvin's universe?"

"Yeah and I think I see a few of Nefarious's and Erol's robots." Ratchet replied.

Just then, there was the sounds of gunshots and laser blasts hitting the cockpit window. However, the bullets and lasers did no damage thanks to the fact that the glass was reinforced.

Just then the firing stopped. Ratchet and Clank looked and saw one of the men talking to two robots.

"Get on both sides of the ship." The man said. "We're going to force it open."

Ratchet and Clank exchanged glances.

"I don't like the sound of that." Ratchet said.

"Me neither." Clank said.

Each of the two robots arms transformed into a crowbar like appendage, wedged them under the edges of the aphelions cockpit, and began to pull upwards.

Knowing that fighting them was quickly becoming inevitable, Ratchet pulled out a blaster and Clank got on his back.

They heard creaking as the lock on the cockpit began to fail. Ratchet pointed his blaster at one of robots forcing the cockpit open.

Finally, the cockpit opened up and Ratchet fired upon the robot, destroying it quickly. He then threw his wrench at the other robot, causing it to stumble, leaving it open for blaster fire.

One of the men in suits charged at Ratchet with a baton. Ratchet noticed this, brought his wrench back to him, and whacked him in the face.

Ratchet then threw a fusion grenade at a group of robots and aliens, blowing up a few of them and knocking others back.

Just as Ratchet was about to use his blaster to fight more of them. Someone fired an energy blast at him, knocking the blaster out of his hands and Clank off his back.

Clank got up and saw Ratchet unconscious. He tries to go run to his friend, but suddenly he is grabbed by the arm and lifted up in the air.

When he was lifted closer to his captor he saw a grey alien with yellow compound eyes. The alien grinned revealing his sharp teeth.

"Hello there." Earl said.

Clank tried to kick Earl but he was too far away from his face. Earl responded by putting a device on him.

"Don't worry, this won't kill you. But it will hurt."

The Device went off, knocking Clank out.

Ratchet, who had gotten up, noticed Earl walking away with Clank.

Noticing his blaster not far from him, but too weak to get up, he crawled there in an attempt to get to it so he could save his friend.

Just when he was almost close enoguh to grab it, Ratchet was grabbed from behind and forced on his knee's. While the blaster was picked up by Dr. Nefarious.

"Hello Ratchet." Dr. Nefarious said.

Ratchet tried to escape, but whoever was holding him had a strong grip on him.

"I would kill you now." Nefarious continued. "But The Chessmaster says he want's you alive."

He then looked at whoever was holding him. "Put the bag over him and knock him out."

Ratchet's vision was obscured by a black bag and he heard one last thing before he was knocked out.

"I think we'll have plenty of weapons to equip you with."

* * *

"So in other words, I went looking for The Chessmaster, but he found me instead." Ratchet said finishing his story.

"Or you accidentally found him." Jak said.

"I don't think that's the case." Ratchet said. "What happened seamed just a bit to convenient."

"What happened after that?" Jak asked.

"Well they tortured me by beating me up and electrocuting me. They didn't even ask me anything, they just seamed to do it for fun."

Ratchet didn't hear Jak say anything. Which was understandable for Ratchet considering Jak ended up being tortured for 2 years thanks to dark eco experiments. So Ratchet's mention of being tortured probably didn't give Jak many pleasant memories.

He then looked at Jak. "I didn't ask this when you woke up, but how did you get captured and did Daxter come with you?"

Jak looked down. "Daxter and I were on a mission to look over a factory possibly making robots, we got spotted and I ended up getting captured. Daxter escaped though."

"Ah, I guess he was luckier then Clank, haven't seen him since I got captured."

"Hopefully he's alright." Jak said. "Have you tried any way to escape?"

"Not really." Ratchet said. "The vent's are too small for even Clank to fit in if he was here, and the only time the door has opened was when they put me back in the cell and when they put you in here. They mainly give me food through the slot at the bottom."

Jak looked at the door. It was completely blank with two closed slows. One was at eye level, the other was at the floor, no doubt to bring food through.

"I think I might have an idea." Jak said standing up. "Stand back."

Ratchet did so and Jak extended his hand towards towards the door with his palm open.

A ball of dark energy began to form in Jak's hand, which began to turn a shade of blue.

Ratchet knew what Jak was trying to do; using his dark eco powers to blast the door open.

For a few seconds the ball of energy seamed to get larger before suddenly, it died out and Jak lowered his hand, which turned back to it's normal color.

"No good." he said looking at it. "I must not have enough dark eco to do it like this."

"Well it was worth a shot." Ratchet said.

Both he and Jak sat down, facing the reality of their situation.

They were trapped on a ship of an evil mastermind, in a cell with no way out but the front door, with tons of evil people, robot's and aliens on the ship, and none of their friends know where they are.

And they had almost no plan of escaping right now.

* * *

Meanwhile in Sly's universe, the gang was in their van. The van was blue with a logo shaped like a raccoon head and below that were flames on the sides.

Totally unassuming.

Inside, Sly, Bentley and Murray were gathered together.

"Okay, everyone know's their roles right?" Bentley said.

Sly and Murray nodded.

"Alright, then let's go."

The gang exited the van and went separate ways.

Bentley used the arms from his wheelchair to lift open a sewer grate and entered it, Sly used a nearby pipe to climb to the rooftops, and Murray ran out of the alley.

Sly ran across the rooftops. Sometimes jumping across them, to walking on wires to get to others. Finally, he got a view of a mansion.

Observing from the roof, he saw three guards standing outside the gate.

Sly talked to Murray through an earpiece. "Okay Murray, time to do your job."

Sly watched as Murray walked up to the gate in front of the guards.

Spotting him, one of the guards walked up to him.

"Hey, you're not supposed to be here." The guard said.

"Sorry, I'm lost and I didn't know I wasn't supposed to be around here." Murray said putting his hands up.

"Sir, if you don't leave now you will be arrested."

Murray, deciding to drop the lost person act, punched the guard in the face and made a run for it.

The guard recovered from his punch and turned to the other guards.

"After him!" he yelled at the two

The guards then ran in the direction Murray went, leaving the gate unguarded.

Using this opportunity, Sly used a wire to go across the roof to the roof of the mansion.

Looking through the skylight, he saw the jade statue, as well as all the lasers that would set off the alarm if he touched one of them.

"Bentley, I'm at the roof, just waiting for you to disable security." Sly said through the earpiece.

Bentley was making his way through the sewer, using a map to the sewer that was on the display built on his wheelchair, when Sly radioed in.

"Don't worry Sly." Bentley said responding to Sly. "I'm almost to the security terminal for the house."

After jumping over a gap in the sewer, he finally made it to the security terminal.

Getting out a device, he placed it on the terminal, activated the computer function of his wheelchair, and began to hack the security system.


	5. Falling into Rifts

Chapter 5. Falling into Rifts

In Sonic universe, Sonic, Tails and Amy were gathered together. A day had passed since Carlson's visit and they we're discussing what to do about Eggman.

"I visited Knuckles, he say's he hasn't seen Eggman going nearby. But if he does, he'll notify us." Tails said.

"Still, If he's been out of prison for a week, why haven't we seen him?" Sonic asked.

"Maybe he's planning something." Amy said. "You know that despite how often we beat him, he has gotten the drop on you a few times."

Sonic thought about something similar. There were a few times Eggman had managed to trick him.

Once time he had tricked him into a trap by holding Amy hostage and wanted to Sonic to give him the emerald. Sonic did so, but Eggman put him in a pod that was going to explode. Sonic was lucky to be alive thanks to a fake chaos emerald that worked just like a real one.

Then there was the time Eggman tricked Sonic into using the chaos emeralds so he could use them to split the planet open to release Dark Gaia. Of course, Sonic fixed it and stopped the beast, but he was partially responsible for the ordeal.

"Look, whatever Eggman's planning, we should be prepared." Sonic finally said. "There no telling what he has in store for us."

"Oh, I don't think you have time to prepare." A familiar voice said from behind them.

All three looked behind them and their eye's widened.

Eggman was here. He was dressed in his usual uniform and in his Eggmobile.

After recovering from the shock of seeing his old nemesis back, Sonic spoke.

"Eggman, long time no see." He said. "How was prison?"

"Oh it wasn't bad." Eggman replied. "The food and people were nice and the guards treated me well."

"Really?" Sonic asked.

"NO!" Eggman yelled. "IT WAS AWFUL! THEY FROZE ME IN A POD AND FORGOT ABOUT ME!"

"I see." Sonic said.

"Just a question, how did you even escape if you we're frozen?" Amy asked.

"Oh I had help with The Chessmaster." Eggman answered with a grin. "And he has a plan for you and your friends."

"What is it that you have planned?" Tails asked.

"You'll find out soon." Eggman replied before flying away.

Sonic, not intent on letting Eggman get away, began to run after him.

"Sonic, wait." Tails didn't get a chance to finish before Sonic was gone.

"We need to go after him." He said to Amy. "Who knows what Eggman is going to do to him after what happened to him."

Amy nodded and the two began to run in the direction Sonic went.

* * *

On The Chessmaster's ship, an alien was carrying two tray's containing food. On them was a roll of bread, a slice of meat, and some broccoli.

The alien approached a door, opened a peephole and peeked through it. Inside he saw Ratchet and Jak sitting down, not doing anything.

He put the food down, opened a slot at the bottom of the door and slid the food in.

Before going, he peeked through the eye level slot again.

"How's you stay so far?" he asked.

The two stared at the peep hole

"Gotta say, this is probably less worse then all the other prisons i've been in." Ratchet replied.

"Though I haven't exactly gotten any input from him." he then said pointing to Jak.

"I see." The alien said, his eye's shifting to Jak. "Gotta say, his attempt at getting out of this cell was good, trying to use his dark eco powers to get out, but that wouldn't even work, since the door is heavily reinforced."

He then closed the eye hole. Jak and Ratchet heard the alien saying to enjoy their meal.

As they ate the food, a thought occurred to Jak.

"How did he know we we're trying to get out of the cell?" he asked.

"Well it's not like we can do much." Ratchet replied.

"I know that, but how did he know that I tried to use my dark eco powers?"

Ratchet thought about it for a moment. "Yeah, I can see that as a bit odd."

Jak put his tray down, and decided to take another look around the cell.

Seeing nothing new at first, he decided to take a closer look at the corners in the cell.

Looking near the ceiling, he noticed something and took a closer look.

Near the ceiling was a small camera, probably about the size of a fingertip, that was directed towards the two.

Checking the other corner, he saw another camera of similar size.

Getting an idea, he ran back to his tray, grabbed the roll of bread, tore it in half and began to hollow it out.

"What are you doing?" Ratchet asked, noticing what Jak was doing.

"Getting us out of here." Jak replied.

* * *

In Sly's universe, Bentley was continuing to hack the security system of the mansion.

Finally, he made it through the last firewall and disabled the security. A countdown then came up.

"Okay Sly, the security system is down. Remember, you have about 60 seconds to get the statue and get out of there."

"I see that, I'm going in." Sly said over the radio.

Bentley heard Sly hooking himself up and repelling down. Looking back at the countdown, he realized something was off.

While there was supposed to be about 50 or 45 seconds left on the countdown, it was close to 15 seconds instead.

Realizing something was going on, Bentley franticly radioed Sly.

"SLY, GET OUT OF THERE NOW!"

"Why? I've almost got the statue." Sly said over the radio.

"Someone sabotaged the device, you have just under 10 seconds to get out of here."

"I can get the statue and get out of there in that time." Sly insisted.

Bentley watched helplessly as the countdown reached zero.

In the mansion, Sly managed to grab the statue just as the security system reactivated. The lasers reappeared and one of them hit Sly, setting off the alarm.

Reacting quickly, Sly quickly got out by ascending back to the roof using the rope.

"Murray, are you there?" Sly said over his earpiece as he ran to the wire that got him across the roof.

"Yes. Sly, what's going on?" Murray asked.

"Just get the van ready, and pick up Bentley."

"Hey, there's the thief." a voice then cried out.

Sly looked and saw a few of the guards staring up at him, and they we're pointing their guns at them.

Sly moved across the wire at a quicker pace, avoiding the shots the guards took at him.

He eventually manages to get over the gate and jumped down to the van below.

He heard the screeching of tires behind him. Looking back he saw three cars behind him.

"Murray, Drive." he quickly said going into the van through the window.

Murray slammed his foot on the accelerator and began to drive away, with the other cars giving chase to them.

* * *

Elsewhere, Sonic was still chasing Eggman.

Eggman was deploying small robots to delay Sonic, but Sonic plowed through them with his speed.

Eggman then launched a volley of missile's from his Eggmobile towards Sonic.

Sonic, seeing an opportunity, leapt on each of the missiles and jumped across them towards the Eggmobile.

Landing right in front of Eggman, he decided to ask him some questions now that he was up close and personal with him.

"Alright Eggman." Sonic said. "Just how did you escape?"

"I already told you, The Chessmaster found where I was and he set me free." Eggman responded with a grin on his face.

"That was just a test question." Sonic replied. "Now for the real one's. What does he have planned?"

"Oh you'll see what he has planned soon." Eggman replied. "And I'm afraid you and your friend's won't be able to stop it."

"That's what you said about the universe eater and look how well that turned out."

"But that was just with you and the others together, The Chessmaster has one of your friends from the other universes hostage."

Sonic's face became shocked. "Who might that be?" he asked, knowing he probably wasn't going to like the answer.

"Oh it's that lombax and his robot friend." Eggman replied, grinning evilly.

Sonic's eyes widened. Not only was he surprised by the fact that they managed to capture Ratchet, especially considering the guy wasn't exactly easy to pin down, but the fact he was captured by quite possibly the man who was behind some of the things Sonic had to fight recently.

"Where is Ratchet being kept?" he demanded, finally gaining his composure back.

Eggman just grinned evilly. "Oh that is something I can't tell you."

Suddenly, Sonic felt a sudden feeling of weightlessness and began to lift away from the Eggmobile.

"Hey." Sonic said as he tried to reach for the edge of the Eggmobile. "What's going on?"

"Oh this is just a preview of things to come." Eggman replied as Sonic drifted away from him.

Just then a rift open's up just above him and Sonic began to get sucked into it.

In a futile attempt to escape, Sonic tried to direct himself away from the rift, but the pull was too strong. Eventually he was sucked into it and afterwords, it closed.

Tails and Amy finally caught up with Eggman, but not before witnessing Sonic being sucked into the rift.

Eggman, noticing them, turned to them with his grin still on his face.

"Ah, I was wondering when you we're going to show up. Too bad you missed your friend, who's probably in another universe by now."

For a moment, both Tails and Amy were shocked over the fact that their friend was taken to another universe.

But they decided to ignore that for now to deal with Eggman. Tails ran towards the eggmobile, while Amy got her hammer out and charged after Tails.

Tails kicked the bottom of the Eggmobile while Amy leaped up and used her hammer to hit the top of it. This resulted in Eggman losing control of the vehicle and tumbling away.

"You might have won now." Eggman yelled as he flew away. "But Sonic is still missing and The Chessmaster has big plans."

For a few moments, Amy and Tails stared as Eggman vanished in the distance. They we're thinking about what Eggman had said before they defeated him.

For once, he was right. Right now Sonic had been taken, thanks to the rift they saw, and now he could be in any universe.

They could only hope he landed in one they knew, and that he could find help.

* * *

In Sly's universe, the gang was still being chased.

"Murray, they're still following us." Sly said looking behind them.

Murray looked around and noticed a nearby alley that was large enough for the van to fit in.

He turned the steering wheel towards it, and the van entered the alley. The cars came to a halt at the entrance.

Just as they we're about to exit the alley, two cars blocked the exit, trapping them in.

"Well, looks like this is it." Bentley said.

"Did you really think it would end like this?" Murray asked.

"Probably. Though I expected cops instead of hired guards." Sly replied.

Bentley then noticed a pen floating in the air inexplicably.

Suddenly, the gang felt the van lift into the air and began to ascend.

The mansion guards, astonished, got out of their cars and witnessed the event.

In the van, the gang heard a noise. Looking up they saw a rift opening above them. Which caused the van to begin to get sucked into it.

"Hold on to something." Sly said grabbing the end of his seat.

Bentley gripped his wheelchair tightly while the robotic arms gripped onto a nearby window. Meanwhile, Murray tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

The van then got sucked into the rift, which then promptly closed.

For a few moments the guards didn't say anything, stunned by the events that happened.

Finally one of them broke the silence.

"Can someone please tell me what just happened?"

* * *

On The Chessmasters ship, a security guard was looking at various monitors, watching various activities on the ship.

These activities included Dr. Nefarious working on something, Penelope working on a machine, Earl chewing out an alien, Erol checking getting a report from one of his robots, and various other activities that were going on.

He decided to look at how the prisoners were doing. However, when he looked at the security feed, he saw nothing but black.

Checking to see it the cameras were broken, he found that they weren't.

He radioed in a guard. "Hey Bill, are you there?"

"Yeah, what is it?"

"Could you check the cameras in Cell 28. There might be something wrong with them."

"I'll do that. It's probably just a glitch."

Bill went to the cell, but before he opened it he peeked though the peephole. Inside he saw Jak and Ratchet apparently sleeping.

"Prisoners are asleep." Bill said to the monitor over the radio.

"Then they shouldn't give you any problems."

Bill opened the door and entered and went to where the cameras were.

Much to his surprise, he found that the camera's were covered with split roll's of bread.

"Oh what the heck is this?" he muttered in annoyance.

"What is it?" the monitor asked.

"They covered the cameras with the bread loaves."

"Well remove them and get out of there."

Sighing, Bill went to work on removing the first loaf of bread from the camera.

"Can you see me?" he asked to the monitor through the camera.

"It's a bit grainy, but I can see you." The monitor replied.

"Very funny, I'm going to remove the other part of the bread now."

Bill went to the other camera and removed the other part of the bread.

From the monitors, the security guard saw the second camera become unobstructed and just as that happened, he saw behind Bill was Ratchet with his food tray raised.

"Behind you!" The monitor yelled.

Bill turned around just as Ratchet swung the food tray on his head, knocking him down.

Jak got up, having pretended to be asleep and ran out of the cell, while Ratchet quickly grabbed the keycard and ran out with him. Closing the door behind him to trap the guard in.

The monitor, witnessing this quickly pressed the alarm.

"All guards, we have escaping prisoners. I repeat, we have escaping prisoners."

Ratchet used the keycard and the door opened. The two ran into the corridor and after a bit, turned into a nearby room to hide as guards ran through the corridor to find them.


	6. Landings

Chapter 6. Landings.

On a school bus, Calvin was simply sitting down looking out the window.

In the seat in front of him, Susie peeked over to talk to him.

"Calvin, did you get you're homework done?" she asked Calvin.

Calvin glared at Susie. "What are you, my mom? Of course I did my homework."

"Did you do it correctly?"

"Yes, why are you so concerned my homework anyway?"

"Well knowing you, you probably did most of them wrong." Susie said.

"No I didn't." Calvin said defensively.

Susie sighed. "Fine, if you say so."

For the next few minutes, nothing much happened.

Then there was a loud noise tore through the bus.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!

Calvin franticly begin to dig through his backpack through the MTM before eventually finding it.

"MTM what is it?"

"I'm detecting a signature similar to the one from yesterday." The MTM responded.

"Okay good, can you track where it leads to."

"Mmmm, sorry I can't."

"WHAT!" Calvin yelled, which caused a few kids to turn their heads. "WHY NOT?"

"Because it's gone now. Whatever signature I detected was gone as soon as I found it."

"Well then, any leftover energy to tell where it is."

"Yes in fact, it's far outside of town. Though I can't specify where."

"Well that's just great. Some sort of gravity fluctuations are happening and some are happening too quick to scan them."

It then occurred to him that everyone on the bus seemed to be staring at him.

"Uh, this doesn't concern any of you." Calvin said casually.

Everyone rolled their eyes and went back to what they were doing.

* * *

Miles away from town, a rift opened and shot out a few things before a van came falling down.

Inside, Sly, Bentley and Murray were sitting down shocked.

Looking around at their new surroundings, they saw that they were on a stretch of road.

Realizing what they were on, they quickly pulled over just before a car hit them.

After a few moments of getting over the shock, they finally had a chance to calm down and talk.

"Does anyone know what happened?" Murray asked.

"The best I understand is, someone probably messed up Bentley's device, we got chased, then we got sucked into some vortex and landed here." Sly said going through the events that just happened.

He then turned to Bentley "At least, that's what I figure. Do you have a better explanation?"

"Well I think your explanation is all we have at the moment." Bentley said. "But I'm wondering how the device was sabotaged. The last time I left it, was when I was getting ready to do that job."

"Look, we can worry about what happened to the device later." Sly said trying to calm Bentley down. "We need to figure out where we are."

"Well were probably not in another time period judging by the car that went past us." Bentley responded

Murray peeked out the window, watching the cars go by, hoping they would give some hint on where they are.

"Well the people here seam to be similar to what Calvin looked like." Murray said observing the driver's in their cars.

"Okay so we might be in Calvin's universe. Doesn't exactly narrow down the location" Bentley said.

"Maybe we can contact them and tell them what's going on." Sly said.

"Okay, but how do we contact them?" Murray said.

"Well..." Sly said smiling nervously.

"You didn't tell any of the others how to contact us, didn't you?" Bentley said glaring at Sly.

He sighed. "No I didn't."

"And you didn't ask the others how you can contact them?"

"Look, I didn't know something like this was going to happen to us again alright." Sly said.

"Well that's going to make finding them a bit more difficult." Bentley said. "How are we going to find them if we can't contact them?"

"Look maybe if we can find a recognizable place from Calvin's universe, we can find them easily." Sly suggested.

"Okay, but we have no idea where in Calvins universe we are." Murray pointed out.

"Well maybe we should start driving and find out."

Murray though about it for a moment, and then started the car again and the gang drove off.

* * *

Elsewhere, another rift opened in the sky and several more objects fell out before a blue hedgehog fell out.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh." Sonic screamed as he fell down to the ground below.

Eventually, he landed face first, and became stuck in the ground. The other objects falling down near him.

He managed to get his face unstuck and rubbed his head.

"Why does this always happen to me whenever I fall from a great height?" he muttered rubbing his head.

He then looked around, trying to figure out where he is.

The objects on the ground were various things he didn't recognize. He presumed they all got sucked in to the rift just like he did.

Looking up, he noticed some familiar buildings in the distance.

Sonic then heard some murmuring. Turning around, he noticed a few people staring at where he was. They looked normal enough, but they had long ears.

He gave them a friendly wave before he ran off.

"Okay, looks like I landed in Haven City." he said as he ran. "I can probably just find Jak and Daxter and explain the situation to them. They can probably help me."

He then ran towards the city, not knowing that he wasn't going to find Jak there.

* * *

Meanwhile at a convenience store, a clerk was reading some sort of romance novel behind the counter. Business had been slow today and barely anyone had come in. She had tried keep herself entertained, but when you're working alone with no one to talk to, there are relatively few options.

She had been so absorbed in the novel that she barely heard a car pulling up and parking. She did however, hear the door open and the bell that was triggered.

She hastily put the romance novel under the counter and tried to look as professional as possible. That was when she saw the customer.

The customer appeared to be a human sized raccoon that was walking on two's, wearing a blue sweater, gloves, and a cap.

The raccoon was picking various food and drinks items from the shelves before looking around some more.

Then he came to the counter and put the stuff on it before looking at her and asking her a question.

"Do you have any maps of the area?"

For a few moments, she said nothing, still shocked over the customer.

"Hey." he said snapping is fingers in front of her. "Did you hear my question."

Finally, she snapped out of it. "Oh, yes we do. We have maps to the Wyoming and Montana area." she said pulling out a map from underneath a desk.

"Sorry if you didn't find any at first. I just haven't gotten around to stocking them back up."

She then drew a dot on the map. "You're right here by the way."

"Thank's." The raccoon said taking the map.

"Will that be all sir?"

"Yes."

"Will you be paying with cash or credit?"

"I think I'll pay with cash." The raccoon said digging through his bag.

As he dug through his pockets, the clerk decided to talk to the customer.

"You know, you must be the oddest customer I've seen." she said.

"What do you mean? You've seen people stranger then me?"

"Well there was someone a few weeks ago. It was a man that looked like he was made of metal. He came in, grabbed some soda, paid for it, and then left. He claimed he was here because someone named Frank forgot to pick it up."

"I see." The Raccoon said as he finally fished out a pouch and placed it on the counter. "Here's my payment, have a nice day."

He then grabbed the stuff and walked out of the store.

The Clerk stared at the door for a few moments before deciding to go back to her book.

Outside, Sly entered the van.

"Did everything work out well?" Bentley asked as Sly gave him and Murray some of the food.

"Got a few odd looks, but other then that things went well." Sly responded before showing them the map. "And I got us a map, so we now have a good idea of where we are."

Sly unfolded the map and they looked at it's contents.

"Okay, where should we go guys?"

Bentley pointed to a spot on the map. "There's a town that's a few miles from here, we can probably start there, and if we find something we know from where Calvin lives, we can find him." he said.

"You have enough gas to get us there, right Murray?" Sly asked turning to Murray.

"Of course." Murray said nodding.

Sly smiled. "Then let's get going."

Murray started the car, got out of parking, and began to drive towards their destination.

* * *

Meanwhile on The Chessmaster's ship, a guard was searching a storage space, looking for Jak and Ratchet. So far he was finding nothing.

He then took his radio and spoke through it.

"No sign of them." he said. "You think they escaped the ship."

"Unlikely." The voice said on the other end. "The aphelion's still here and we know the lombax won't leave without his friend. We also still have their equipment and everyone's on high alert, so they're not going anywhere."

"Alright, I'll continue looking for them. If I see one of them, I'll contact you as soon as possible."

The guard then left the storage room.

In the storage room, the tops of two boxes shifted and fell tothe ground. Two heads peaked out of them, those being Ratchet and Jak.

"Okay." Jak said to Ratchet while dusting himself off. "What are we going to do now?"

"We're going to find Clank, get our stuff and get out of here." Ratchet said getting out of the box.

"What?" Jak said. "You found The Chessmaster and now you want to escape?"

"Look, I didn't think I'd get captured and tortured for a week, okay!" Ratchet said. "What exactly do you have in mind?"

"Well first two things you said for starters, but then find a way to contact the others and stop The Chessmaster."

"Why can't we just do that after we escape?"

"Because if we do that, they're going to realize were gone and fly somewhere else and we might never find him again."

"Okay fair point, but that doesn't change the fact that we're trapped on a ship filled with our enemies, and they most likely want to kill us. Plus, we have no way of defending ourselves."

"Well we're going to have to impr..." Jak began before they heard the sound of a door opening.

The two turned and saw a guard standing there and staring at them.

For a few seconds, they neither did or say anything.

Then the guard reached for his radio. Ratchet, acting quickly, grabbed a pipe from the box and threw it at him.

The pipe hit the guard in the head, knocking him out.

"Were you going to say improvise?" Ratchet asked Jak.

"Yeah I was." Jak replied before turning to the unconscious guard. "Let's just hope no one saw that."

He then went over and peeked out the door and looked at both ends of the hallway. Surprisingly, the hallways were empty, with not another person in sight.

Not wanting to take any chances in case someone else came by here, Jak dragged the body out of sight and closed the door.

He then propped the guard against a storage shelf and turned to Ratchet.

"Do any of the boxes contain rope by any chance?" he asked.

Ratchet went to check on the boxes, opening them up to check their contents. Eventually he found a piece of rope.

He handed it over to Jak, who began to tie the guards hands to the shelf.

"What exactly are you going to do to him?" Ratchet asked.

"He might know where Clank and our equipment is." Jak explained as he also began to tie the guards legs together. "So we're going to ask him some questions."

A few minutes later, the guard began to stir awake.

The last thing the guard remembered was seeing the two escapees in the storage room and just before he was about to call security, the lombax threw a pipe at him. After that everything went black.

Waking up, he found himself in a sitting position and felt himself leaning against something.

Thinking nothing of it at first, he tried to reach for the radio to try and call security again, but found that he couldn't move his arms.

"Looking for this?" he heard a voice say.

The guard looked up and saw Jak holding the radio, with Ratchet behind him holding a pipe.

"Hey, give that back!" The guard yelled as he struggled against the bonds.

Jak simply tossed the radio on the ground near Ratchet, who responded by using the pipe to smash the radio.

"That cost a lot of money!"

"Well you're going to have to get a new one." Ratchet replied.

"What do you even want from me?" The guard replied.

"We just need you to answer some questions." Jak replied.

"Like what?"

"Like where my friend is for starters." Ratchet replied.

"What are you talking about I don't know anything about where he is." The guard said.

Jak turned to Ratchet and nodded. Ratchet raised the pipe as he was about to throw it at the guard again.

He tossed it, landing an inch right of the guards head.

"You want to get knocked out again, or do you want to talk?"

"Okay, I'll talk."

"Good." Jak said. "Now tell us where his friend is."

"He's in a containment lab."

"Where?"

"Once you leave this room, you need to turn left, turn a right on the third hallway you come across, you then should find a door labeled Containment lab."

Jak turned to Ratchet "You understood that, right?"

Ratchet nodded and the two began to leave.

"Hey, wait! You can't leave me here!" The guard yelled as they exited the room.

"Sorry." Ratchet said turning to him. "But we can't exactly have you giving away where we're going."

He then closed the door, leaving the guard alone and still tied up.

* * *

Meanwhile, Sly, Bentley and Murray had arrived at the town on the map and were driving around, looking for familiar landmarks.

So far, there were none that caught their eye. Oddly enough though, no one seamed to notice the van was being driven by a hippo with a raccoon in the passenger seat.

"Any luck on finding a recognizable place?" Bentley asked.

"Nope." Sly said looking out the window.

"We should probably go to the next nearby town if we can't find anything."

"Guys, guys look!." Murray suddenly yelled.

Sly and Bentley turned and saw Murray pointing at something.

They looked out the window. They saw a building that, to anyone who had been living in the town for a long time, wouldn't be anything special. But to them, they recognized the place from an adventure from a few months ago.

"Isn't that the museum we met Tenebris in?" Sly asked staring at the building.

"As a matter of fact, it is." Bentley said.

"We must be close to where Calvin lives if that's so." Sly said.

"But we don't know where he lives." Murray pointed out.

"We know where one of his friends, Andy, lives." Bentley pointed out. "We find him, we find Calvin."

"Good point." Sly said. "Let's go to where he lives and we can explain the situation to him."

They then drove off to their next destination, making sure to follow traffic laws.

* * *

Meanwhile Calvin was sitting on the bus on his way home, staring out the window.

At school during recess, Calvin had attempted to narrow down the location of where the rift opened. Unfortunately, by then any trace of the rift signature had vanished and was unable to locate it.

They had decided that when next rift popped up in their area, the MTM would teleport to it and they would scan it to figure out where it's coming from.

The bus arrived at it's stop and Calvin left, along with Susie.

"Goodbye." Calvin said. "Hope I don't see you tomorrow."

Susie kept walking in response.

Calvin rolled his eyes and walked to his house.

He got to the door and opened it.

"I'M HOME."

Not a second after he said that, Hobbes came out the door and pounced on him and they began fighting.

For a while they tossed and punched each other when suddenly the heard a voice.

"Well, that was quicker then expected."

The two immediately stopped fighting and turned in the direction the voice came from.

They saw a blue van with a raccoon head painted on the side with some flames. In the drivers seat was a pink hippo, and peeking behind him was a raccoon with a blue cap.

"Sly?" Calvin asked as he got off of Hobbes. "What are you doing here?"

"We can explain." Murray said.

"Well I think you better come inside." Hobbes said. "I know people in this town most likely won't notice you, but I don't want to take any chances."

Sly, Murray and Bentley got out of the van, with Bentley getting out through the back. Calvin and Hobbes then led them into the garage.

Just as Sly was about to explain what happened, they heard Calvin's mom.

"Calvin why is there a van parked outside our house?" she said.

"Uh." Calvin said trying to think of an excuse.

Finally, he came up with one. "The van broke down and the owners are trying to find a phone for help."

Calvin's mom was silent, which made it hard to tell if she bought the excuse or not.

Finally she spoke. "Well I hope they find some help soon."

Calvin and Hobbes breathed a sigh of relief and turned back to Sly and the gang.

"So how did you end up here?" Hobbes asked.

"Well, we were stealing something from a con men, something went wrong, and when being chased we got sucked into some vortex and ended up here." Sly explained, summarizing what happened.

Calvin then froze. "Wait, how did you end up here?"

"We got sucked into a vortex." Bentley said.

"Could you describe it in more detail what happened during that?"

"Well we we're cornered when suddenly we started floating in the air. A vortex then opened up and we got sucked in and ended up here."

Calvin and Hobbes exchanged glances.

"Yeah, I think we should contact Andy, Sherman and Socrates." Hobbes said.

"I agree." Calvin said. "We need a meeting right now."


	7. Finding out an Evil Plan

Chapter 7. Finding Out an Evil Plan.

Minutes later at Socrates mansion, Calvin, Hobbes, Andy, Sherman, Socrates, Sly, Bentley and Murray were sitting in a circle.

Sly had told them how they got here and the group was now deciding what to do.

"Okay, so judging from the story, I'd take it that the vortex that dropped you here was what the MTM picked up on the way to school this morning." Calvin said.

"It seams so." The MTM said. "Judging from the story they've told."

"And from what Sly described, the gravity fluctuations aren't limited to our universe." Andy said.

"We should probably contact the others." Hobbes said. "If this is affecting both Sly's and our universe, it's most likely affecting theirs."

"Hey what about them?" Sherman asked pointing at Sly, Bentley and Murray. "We can't just have them to sleep in their van."

Calvin thought about it for a moment. Normally he would teleport them back to their home universe, but with what was going on, it was probably for the best they stayed here for now. If he was going to do that, they would need food and shelter for now.

"Okay." he said turning to them. "Given the circumstances, you're going to be staying in my universe for now. But all of you aren't going to stay at my house."

"But where are we going to go?" Murray asked.

"He means all three of you aren't going to stay at his house." Hobbes clarified.

"Right, I think one person per house would be good." Calvin said before turning to Sly. "Sly, you're going to stay with us."

He then turned to Andy. "Andy, Bentley is going to stay with you."

Finally he turned to Socrates. "Socrates, I think you know who you're getting."

Socrates stood up and saluted. "Don't worry Calvin, I will make sure he's properly taken care of."

Hobbes then went over to Murray. "Word of advice." Hobbes whispered. "If you ever decide to go outside, I'd advise you to watch your step."

"Why?" Murray asked.

"Socrates is a bit of a prankster." Hobbes explained. "And his front backyard is littered with traps. I assure you they're completely harmless, but you might need a bath afterwords."

He then went out the door with Calvin, Sly, Andy, Sherman and Bentley.

Just as Calvin was about to step on the path out, he turned to Socrates.

"You deactivated all the booby traps, right?" he asked.

Socrates smiled innocently. "Why yes Calvin I did."

"Good, because the last time I left your house I got splattered with water balloons filled with ketchup."

Calvin then began to walk away, with Hobbes and Sly behind him.

When he stepped on one fo the stones however, it pressed down and Calvin was suddenly hit in the face with a water balloon filled with ranch.

Calvin, his face covered in the white substance, glared at Socrates.

"Sorry Calvin, must have missed one." Socrates said waving his hand goodbye.

Hobbes stared at Murray, pointing at Calvin, and mouthed the words, "Like that."

The rest then went on their way back to their homes.

"Okay." Calvin said to Sly as he cleaned his face. "Let's just set some ground rules while staying at my house."

"Sure, what are they?"

"Number one: Don't steal food from the fridge. Because the last time I had someone stay at my home, they took food from there."

"That's fine, but how am I supposed to eat."

"Hobbes will bring you food. Though note we aren't a gourmet restaurant so don't expect anything fancy."

Calvin then went on the second rule. "Number two: You will be staying in the attic, and when my parents are home, you are not allowed to leave it."

"Didn't you say minutes ago that they probably wouldn't notice me or any of the others?" Sly asked.

"Yes, but I don't want to take any chances." Calvin answered. "Finally, Rule 3, and this is important, never touch my inventions."

"Yeah it's probably best that you follow rule three." Hobbes said. "Who knows what would happen if Calvin's inventions were in the wrong hands."

"Can I trust you to follow these rules?" Calvin asked.

Sly nodded.

"Good."

They then arrived at the house and Hobbes peeked through the window.

"Hobbes, how's the inside?" Calvin asked.

"Well, your mom is currently in the kitchen and dad is currently in the living room." Hobbes said.

"Okay, getting Sly into the attic is going to be a bit tricky." Calvin said. "But i'm sure we can manage."

He then turned to face Sly, but he was gone.

They head the front door open. Peeking through the window again, Hobbes saw Sly peeking through before going to hide behind a wall. Both Calvin and Hobbes eye's widened, they ran to the door and got inside

"Calvin was that you?" he heard his mother ask.

"Uh, yeah that was me." he responded, noticing Sly's tail going out of view in the staircase.

"Where were you?" his mother then asked.

"I went to visit Andy to borrow some comic books from him. I'll be in my room, don't disturb me." he said quickly

He and Hobbes ran up the stairs to see that the door to the attic was open. They got in and saw Sly sitting there relaxing.

"How did you get in here without my parents noticing?" Calvin asked in a hushed, angry voice.

"Didn't you forget?" Sly said smiling. "I know how to get into places without anyone noticing."

"Oh right, you're a thief." Hobbes said rolling his eyes. "You've probably done this a hundred times."

"Well, I hope you enjoy your room." Calvin said to Sly.

Calvin and Hobbes left the attic and closed the door behind them.

"I'll try to contact the others." Calvin said to Hobbes. "If what's happening in Sly's universe and ours, it's probably best to check on the others."

Calvin went into his room and got out the MTM.

Just before he was about to use the MTM, Calvins mom then called out.

"Calvin, it's time to eat."

Calvin sighed and put the MTM down. Before leaving the room, he turned to Hobbes.

"Be sure to stay near the stairs, I'll be giving you food to bring up to Sly."

Hobbes nodded and they left the room.

* * *

On The Chessmaster's ship, Jak and Ratchet were running through the hallway and were on the way to the containment room Clank was in when they heard footsteps and the faint sound of people speaking.

Knowing they needed to hide, Ratchet spotted a door nearby.

"In here." he whispered to Jak indicating to the room.

They quickly got in and closed the door, but kept it open slightly to listen to what they we're saying.

"So Eggman, I heard your helping Nefarious with a project of his." One voice said.

Jak recognized the voice as Erol, not forgetting the last encounter he had with him back at his factory. He was more surprised however by the mention of Eggman, as the last time he saw him, he was being arrested.

Ratchet looked as surprised at the mention of Eggman as well.

"Yes I am, when he told me what he was working on, he said he took inspiration from me." Eggman's voice responded. "Right now, he's equipping it with the weapons."

"I see." Erol replied. "As for where your nemesis has gone, he's landed in Jak's universe. He'll probably try and find him for help, but he doesn't know that he's somewhere on this ship."

"Speaking of which, I've heard that Penelope's plan to take out Sly didn't exactly go as planned. Where are his whereabouts right now?" Eggman said.

"What does The Chessmaster want with Sly?" Jak whispered to Ratchet.

"Let's just listen to what they say." Ratchet whispered back.

"Well from what i've heard, he and his gang have landed in Calvin's universe. Let's just hope it's far from where that kid and his tiger live." Erol responded.

"That rift machine probably caused it." Eggman said. "I've heard The Chessmaster is trying to fix all the bugs in the machine so it would be ready when the time comes."

Ratchet and Jak inched closer to the door, interested in what they were going to say.

Just then, they head another set of footsteps coming down the hall.

"Ah, Dr. Nefarious." Eggman said. "What brings you down here?"

"I've made the finishing touches on my robot." Nefarious's voice replied. "Care to see it?"

"Yes, it'd be interesting to see how your robot compares to mine."

"Oh, but it will be better then yours I assure you."

They then heard footsteps walking away from them.

Peeking through the crack, Jak saw Erol standing there alone. Erol briefly turned towards the door and Jak quickly moved away from it, not wanting to be seen.

Keeping quiet, he and Ratchet heard Erol walking away.

Deciding to keep moving in case he came back. The moment they could no longer hear the footsteps, they exited the room and continued on their way to where Clank was being hold.

* * *

At Andy's house, in the basement Sherman was working on an experiment while Bentley was analyzing the device used in the heist to figure out what was wrong with it.

Andy and Sherman had decided to have Bentley live in Sherman's lab for the time being, seeing as usually, he and Andy were the only people in the house to go down there. As such, no one would know he was there.

As Bentley looked through the code, he didn't recognize some of the lines at first. But looking through it further, he began to recognize some of the lines of code.

He then realized that there was only one person that could have possibly written this code. Also realizing what happened.

Bringing out the postcard with the mouse head, he realized it's meaning.

"You were trying to put us out of action." he said to himself out loud.

"What was that?" Sherman asked, putting a beaker down before turning to Bentley.

"Oh." Bentley said realizing he said something aloud. "I just found out what was wrong with the device that I used the heist we were doing before we arrived here. The device was supposed to disable the security for about a minute, but instead it disabled it for 30 seconds."

"So? Maybe you timed it for 30 seconds instead of a minute." Sherman replied.

"No, I recall making it 60 seconds." Bentley said. "Someone must have swapped it for a different one, and I only know one person who might have done this."

"And who might that be?" Sherman asked.

"My Ex-girlfriend, Penelope." Bentley answered.

"Wait, your ex?" Sherman asked, surprised by Bentley's response. "What happened between you?"

"Well, we had a bit of a disagreement." Bentley started, clearly not wanting to talk about it. "Simply put, before the whole time travel ordeal, she vanished and for most of the time, I tried looking for her."

He then sighed and lowered his head. "What I didn't expect was the fact she was working for the mastermind behind the ordeal."

"What happened after that?"

"Once we beat her, she was put in prison, she broke out not long after and I started receiving these." Bentley said showing him the postcard. "This was the most recent one before we arrived here."

"So I'll take it she was responsible for your heist going wrong." Sherman said.

Bentley nodded.

None of them spoke for a while. Sherman didn't exactly have experience with being in love, given that he was friend's with Calvin, who hosted a club that stood for Get Rid of Slimey Girls. However, from the tone of Bentley's voice, Sherman could tell Bentley wished things could have turned out better with Penelope.

"Well, I'm sorry for how things turned out with you two." Sherman said sincerely. "You must have had a good relationship with her before all that happened."

You should see Sly's relationship." Bentley said. "Makes what happened to mine look simple."

"How so?"

"Well, he's a thief and the person he's in love with is an INTERPOL agent." Bentley explained. "See where things get complex."

Sherman nodded, giving a small chuckle. Deciding to go back to work, he turned back to the lab equipment, leaving Bentley to sit and wonder what Penelope was doing now.

* * *

On The Chessmaster's ship, Penelope was wearing goggles while working on a machine.

The machine she was working on was known as The Rift Collider. She was told what it does, open rifts in various universes, though not told what it's planned for. She was tasked with fixing some of the faults of the machine.

"Penelope, do you have a moment?" she heard a voice say.

She turned and saw The Chessmaster standing there.

"Oh." She said taking the goggles off. "Did you want an update on the rift machine?"

"No, I just came in here to tell you something. But you can give me an update." The Chessmaster replied.

"Well when rifts are open in more then two universes the machine shorts out, so i'm currently working on that. As for the gravity fluctuations, I ran a few tests and it turns out their an effect of the rifts opening so I can't fix that."

"You'll find a way to stop the machine from shorting out right."

"I will. What is it you wanted to tell me anyway?"

"Earl is asking permission to use some of your robots for an attack." The Chessmaster explained.

"Oh." she said. "Well, I can lend him a few of them."

"I'll tell Earl that." The Chessmaster said nodding before turning his back and walking away.

Before he left he turned back to Penelope. "Before I go, I should let you know that two of my prisoners, Ratchet and Jak have escaped. I'm sure you've at least heard of them."

Penelope nodded. She had read their files when The Chessmaster had recruited her.

"They might not have their weapons right now, but I can assure you, they are no less dangerous then they are with them. So hope they don't come across you."

The Chessmaster then left. After a brief pause, thinking about what The Chessmaster had said, Penelope went back to working on the rift collider.

* * *

Elsewhere on the ship, Ratchet and Jak finally made it to the containment room that supposedly held Clank.

"Okay, this is where Clank is." Ratchet said reaching for the door.

"Wait." Jak said. "Do you have anything to defend yourself? There's probably a lot of guards in there."

Ratchet got out a small blaster and nodded. "Got it off that guard that gave us the location." he said.

"Very well." Jak said. "Let's go rescue your friend."

He opened the door, revealing that behind the door was a ton of robots, aliens, and guards. They were doing various tasks, having not noticed them yet. In the center of the room, on the a floor above them, was a tube containing a small grey robot with his eyes closed.

When the door closed, everyone in the room turned and saw the two standing there.

Jak turned to Ratchet. "You get Clank, I'll handle as many of them as I can."

Ratchet nodded and began to run to the stairway that led to the floor above. Jak meanwhile, ran towards a guard that was aiming his blaster at him.

Jak kicked him and took the baster from his hands, turning it on the guard and shoot's him.

'Not exactly my morph gun, but this'll do for now.' Jak thought looking at the blaster.

Jak then fired the blaster on the rest of the robots, guards and aliens to try to distract them from Ratchet.

Ratchet meanwhile ran up the stairs and fired the blaster he had against anyone in his way. While the blaster didn't exactly do much against the robots, it did a good job at stunning them for a while allowing him to progress.

Eventually he reached the control panel for the stasis tube.

"Okay, now how does this thing work." Ratchet muttered to himself as he looked at the buttons on the control panel.

He picked one of the buttons at random and pressed it. This resulted Clank landed on a floor below.

Just before he was about to try another button, he was shot at by a guard who had come up. The blasts just barely missed him.

Ratchet fired back at him, knocking the guard over the balcony before going back to the control panel. However, during the firefight, the control panel had been damaged.

Looking back at the stasis tube, and seeing Clank laying on the ground, he grabbed a nearby chair and began to swing it at the tube. At first, it didn't do much damage, but after repeated swings, there were cracks beginning to form in the glass.

Eventually, the glass shattered and Ratchet ran through the hole to grab his friend and get him out.

Ratchet placed Clank on the floor as he began to wake up.

"Clank, you alright?" Ratchet asked his friend.

"Ratchet, what happened?" Clank asked.

"Well simply put, The Chessmaster ended up finding us, you ended up in a stasis tube, and I ended up getting tortured for a week." Ratchet said summing up what had happened to him. "Oh and Jak is here as well."

"Thanks for telling me what happened after we got separated." Clank responded. "But how did Jak..."

Ratchet and Clank heard footsteps behind them. Turning around, they saw a ton of robots and aliens pointing their guns at them.

Ratchet turned back to Clank "We can deal with that later. Do you happen to have any weapons I could use?"

Clank nodded. "Plenty of them."

Clank reached in his chest compartment, giving Ratchet two Omniblasters.

Smiling, Ratchet turned to the robots and aliens, pointing the Omniblasters at them.

"So, who want's to go first?"

Meanwhile, Jak was fending off the robots and aliens down below. Right now, the three remaining guards were hiding behind columns to avoid being shot at by Jak.

Behind him, Jak heard the door open, followed by metallic clinking. Turning around he saw robots with spider-like legs and gatling guns for arms, aiming them at him.

The guards then emerged from the columns and pointed their guns at Jak.

"Put the gun down, you're surrounded outnumbered." One of the guards yelled.

Reluctantly, Jak tossed the weapon away from him.

"Now you're coming with us."

Jak sighed. "Did you honestly forget I had someone else come with me?" he asked the guards.

The guards looked at each other in confusion.

Just then two rockets were fired from above, hitting the robots behind Jak.

Reacting quickly, Jak rolled forward and grabbed the blaster and fired upon one of the guards.

He then pointed the blaster at the remaining two guards.

"What was that about me being outnumbered again?" Jak asked smirking.

Seconds later, Ratchet then landed with Warmonger in hand. He also pointed it at the guards.

Not liking their chance's with one of them having an entire arsenal at their disposal and the knowledge that the other was just as dangerous thanks to his abilities, the two guards fled.

Now by themselves, they had a chance to relax for now.

Clank got off of Ratchets back and approached Jak.

"I'm glad you helped Ratchet save me." Clank said. "But how did you get here?"

"Isn't it obvious, Calvin found out you and Ratchet were in trouble and he teleported me here." Jak said sarcastically.

Clank with an expression that said, 'really'.

"How do you think I ended up here?" Jak then said in complete seriousness.

"I figured you were captured, but what happened to Daxter? Was he captured too?"

"No, Daxter managed to escape. Hope he's okay." Jak replied

Jak then turned to Ratchet. "I guess Clank had your weapons given that you saved me with your rocket launcher. Any chance you found my morph gun while you were up there?"

"I made finding Clank my priority, but I did try to find it." Ratchet explained.

"Did you?"

"No, so I guess it's probably somewhere else on this ship."

Jak looked back on the bodies of the guards and the scraps that were once robots. "Guess I should have left one alive."

"Well there is something you should know."

Just then they heard the door open and the three turned towards it.

A robot was standing there holding a clipboard, at first not noticing anything. Then he saw the three standing there, resulting in him dropping the clipboard in shock.

Ratchet got out his wrench and threw it at the robot, knocking it to the ground before Ratchet threw again, this time pinning it to the ground.

Jak approached the robot and looked down on him.

"You're going to answer a question for me alright." He said. "Where's my morph gun?"

"Like I'm going to tell you, because I have no idea what you're taking about." The robot replied.

Jak looked at Ratchet for a moment before looking back at the robot.

"Wait here." He said to the robot before walking to Ratchet.

"Well with the wrench pinning me down I'm not going anywhere." The Robot replied in annoyance.

The robot watched Jak converse with Ratchet for a little bit, not hearing what they were saying, before Jak returned to the robot.

"Well my friend told me that my gun was apparently once here, so I'll ask the question again. Where is it?"

"Like I said, I'm not telling you."

Jak sighed. "Guess talking isn't going to work."

He then aimed the blaster he had at the robot.

"Now, answer the question, and you better give me a right one now."

"Okay, it was transferred to a storage area on the ship." The robot said in a panicked tone.

"Could you tell me where this storage area is?"

The robot told him the directions. "Your going to let me go now right?"

"Well you're a robot, so even if I destroy you you're probably going to be rebuilt and replaced." Jak said.

He then turned to Ratchet and Clank. "Am I right on this one?"

Both Ratchet and Clank shrugged in response.

"See, you'll probably be replaced in no time."

Jak then shot the robot, destroying it.

He then went back to Ratchet and Clank.

"So what exactly is our plan." Clank asked.

"Well, escaping form the cell and rescuing you was step one and two." Ratchet explained. "The next step is getting Jak's morph gun, then we contact the others, and stop whatever The Chessmasters planning."

"That does sound like a good plan." Clank replied.

"Well it was a bit better then what I came up with at first." Ratchet replied. "Which was do the previous 3 steps, but then flee on the aphelion, get the others and come back stop The Chessmaster."

"Well I'm glad you went with the current plan." Clank replied. "Because staying here and using whatever's on the ship to contact the others could help them trace where we are and lead them right to us."

"Well that's what I was thinking when I came up with that plan." Jak said. "Can we go now before anyone else shows up?"

"Jak's right. If the ship wasn't on high alert when we escaped, they're definitely going to be now." Ratchet said.

"I agree." Clank said. "But before we go, I do have to tell you something Ratchet."

"What is it Clank?" Ratchet asked.

"When I said I had your weapons, I forgot to mention that a few had gone missing. I presume they took some of them out when I was unconscious."

"Which weapons did they take?"

"Well they're ones we don't exactly use anymore, but it's still concerning."

Ratchet thought about it. "Eggman did mention that Nefarious was working on a project. Maybe he's using the weapons for it."

"Well hopefully we stop him before he has a chance to use it." Jak said. "Now let's get going."

The three then left the room, with Clank hopping on Ratchet's back.

* * *

In Calvin's universe, Calvin was having dinner with his family. While his parents were simply eating their food, Calvin was playing with his food, not really eating it.

"Calvin, you're not leaving this table until you finish your plate." Calvin's mom said staring at him.

Calvin sighed. "Fine, I'll eat this stuff you call food."

Then his eyes widened and he pointed in front of him. "OH MY GOD, WHAT IS THAT?"

Calvin's parents looked in the direction he was pointed and under the table, Calvin activated the time pauser.

BOOM!

Time stoped for everyone except Calvin, who grabbed his plate and went to the stairs, where Hobbes was there holding a disc under his arms and a plate with his hands.

Calvin put most of the food on the plate except for a small portion of it. He gave Hobbes the thumbs up, which Hobbes did so.

Calvin then returned to the table and used the time pauser to unfreeze time.

BOOM.

Time resumed normally and Calvin beguilingly began to eat what was left of his food on his plate.

Calvin's parents finally looked back and saw Calvin finishing off the food on his plate.

He then stared at his parents. "Can I go now?"

Meanwhile Hobbes was going up to the attic with the plate of food. When he reached the door, he knocked on it.

"Sly, it's Hobbes, I brought food."

Sly opened the door and grabbed the plate.

"Sorry it's not the best looking food, but it's what we have."

"It's alright." Sly said. "Wasn't exactly expecting much. How's Calvin?"

"Calvin's probably in his room right now trying to contact the others. Would be nice to get the others and figure out what's going on."

Hobbes then left the attic and went into Calvin's room. Inside, Calvin was listening to a message on the MTM.

"Daxter here. If you are hearing this, that means you can't reach me at the moment. Oh, and it also means Jak's probably not around either. If it's something important, please leave a message."

Sighing, Calvin pressed a button on the MTM, ending the call.

"No luck?" Hobbes said walking over to Calvin.

"Nope, tried Ratchet before and got a similar message." Calvin said. "Going to try Sonic next."

"I really hope he answers." Hobbes said.

"I do too." Calvin said. "Otherwise, it's just going to be us and Sly to try and figure out what's going on."

Suddenly the MTM began to ring. "Incoming Message, Incoming Message."

"Who is it?"

"Well it appears Tails is calling."

"Oh thank god." Calvin said in relief. "I was hoping it was going to be Sonic, but Tails will do just fine."

Calvin pressed a button on the MTM and Tails voice came through.

"Hello? Calvin are you there."

"Yes, Tails it's me." Calvin replied.

"Oh, I'm glad you managed to answer." Amy's voice said. "We tried to reach the others, but they wouldn't answer."

"Look, I'm glad to hear from us but can you get Sonic on the line? We need to talk to him about some things." Calvin said.

There was silence at the other end.

"That might be a bit difficult." Tails finally said.

"Why, is Sonic not available at the moment?" Hobbes said.

"It's not just that, we lost him and have no idea where he is."


	8. Seeking Help

_A/N: My my, It's certainly been a while since I updated this story._

 _To answer why this took so long, here's the answer, writers block and college. Writers block hit me hard leaving my unable to figure out what to write for a few months, and College barely gave me time to write this. That and writing a few other stories and planning my next big one kind of delayed this chapter a lot. But now here it is. Enjoy._

* * *

Chapter 8. Seeking Help.

In Haven City, among the citizens, a blue hedgehog was walking with his head low.

Sonic had spent most of the day looking for Jak and Daxter, he at first looked at places they might be like the Naughty Otsel and the shooting range. When he didn't find either of them there, he went to the wasteland and asked around.

He got the same answer each time, they haven't heard from or seen Jak or Daxter since yesterday.

Right now, Sonic walking, feeling down. He had no idea where Jak's home was in Haven, or even if he had one.

"What am I going to do?" He asked to himself.

As he was walking, he noticed someone walking.

It was a girl with green hair, a white top, and wearing shorts. She had a look of slight worry in her face.

Although Sonic only talked to her only once, he recognized her as Keira. He figured she knew Jak and Daxter from the interactions he witnessed.

Knowing this was his only way of finding Jak and Daxter, Sonic ran over to her. Because of his speed it took less then a second to get to her.

Started from his sudden appearance, Keira stumbled back a bit in front of the blue hedgehog.

"Who are you?" she asked in surprise staring at the blue hedgehog.

"I'm Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog." Sonic said pointing at himself with a grin. "You probably met me once remember."

Keira thought about it, trying to figure out where she's seen the blue hedgehog before.

She then remembered him. "Oh, you're Jak's friend from another universe."

Sonic nodded. "That's right."

"What are you doing here?"

"I need help and I'm trying to find Jak and Daxter. Do have any idea where they are?"

Keira sighed. "I'm sure you probably got this answer already, but I haven't seen him since yesterday."

"Yes I have." Sonic said dejected. "But you know both of them, so when did you last see them?"

Keira thought about it. "Well, I last saw them yesterday. We were walking in the city when Jak got a call from the City Guard. He didn't give much details on what the city guard said, but he ran off that was the last time I saw him and Daxter." she explained. "I've decided to go to the City Guard HQ to figure out what happened to them."

"Maybe I can come with you." Sonic said. "It could give me a hint of where they are."

"I don't know, you kind of stand out here." Keira said.

"Look, at this rate I need some hint of where they are. Whoever's at this City Guard HQ must know something about what happened, and I have a feeling somethings going on." Sonic said.

He then crossed his arms. "Besides, Jak usually has Daxter on his shoulder. I'm sure whoever sees me won't think anything of it."

Keira thought about it for a moment before shrugging. "Fair point, you can come with me."

They then began to walk towards their destination.

* * *

"Hang on, how did you loose Sonic?" Hobbes asked in disbelief.

Over the MTM, Tails sighed. "About a day ago, we got visited by someone who told us Eggman escaped."

"Wait, Eggman's escaped?" Calvin said in surprised.

"Yes, and a day later he showed up and Sonic went after him." Amy said. "Me and Tails don't know what happened, but when we caught up to them Sonic was sucked into this rift and now we don't know where he is."

"Wait, did she mention a rift?" A voice said nearby.

Calvin and Hobbes turned and saw Sly standing there near the door.

"What are you doing here Sly?" Hobbes asked. "You're supposed to be in the attic."

"Thought I might listen in on your conversation with the others." Sly said. "Might figure out what they're up to."

"Sly's in your universe?" Tails said in surprise over the MTM. "How did he get here?"

"Yes, Sly's in our universe, and he's living in our attic." Calvin said. "Bentley and Murray also came with him and are living in Andy's and Socrates house if your wondering."

"To answer your second question, he said he got sucked into a rift and ended up here." Hobbes said.

"If Sly and the others are in your universe, then there's a chance Sonic landed in a universe we're familiar with." Amy said. "So maybe you can call Jak or Ratchet to see if they've seen him."

Calvin and Hobbes exchanged glances.

"About that." Hobbes said. "Before you called, Calvin attempted to call Jak or Ratchet and neither of them answered. I at least expected Daxter to pick up when I tried to called Jak."

"You're speaking to us from the MTM right?" Tails said. "Maybe you can teleport them to your house using it."

"Good idea Tails. MTM, teleport Jak, Daxter, Ratchet and Clank for us please." Calvin said.

"Righto."

There was a few seconds and they waited for the suggested people to appear.

"Sorry, it looks like I can't do that."

"What!?" Calvin yelled in surprise "Why not? Is your battery low again?"

"No, it appears that somethings preventing me from teleporting them here. It's also preventing me from finding out Jak and Ratchet's location. Though I can track Daxter and he appears to be in his home universe."

"So Jak, Ratchet and Clank are probably back in their home universes then, right?" Amy said over the MTM's speaker.

"No, Daxter is the only one we know who's in his home universe right now. I can't seam to get a reading on the others."

Calvin and Hobbes exchanged worrying glances. If Daxter was still in his own universe, then why was he not answering or contacting them? And where were Jak, Ratchet and Clank?

"Okay, but can you at least teleport Sonic here or back to his universe so he can be reunited with Tails and Amy?" Calvin said turning back to the MTM

"Nope, it appears whatever's preventing me from teleporting Jak and Ratchet is preventing me from teleporting him too. Though my reading suggest he's in Jak's universe and is in Haven City, Jak and Daxter's home."

"Okay, that's good." Hobbes said in relief. "He can probably find Daxter and explain what's happened to him."

"Yeah I forgot to mention, Daxter's somewhere outside of Haven City." The MTM added. "So Sonic's not going to be able to find him there."

Calvin groaned. "Can you please just give me some good news, MTM?"

"I've managed to fix the hologram projector, so the video won't lag anymore." The MTM said cheerfully.

Calvin put his head, face down on his desk, groaning.

There was a long silence as the group processed the previous information.

Finally Tails spoke, "Do you think something might be going on here?"

"What do you mean?" Sly asked

"Well Jak and Ratchet are missing, rifts have been opening up and sucking things in, Eggman's been broken out of prison. Do you honestly thing there's someone behind all of this?" Tails explained.

Calvin and Hobbes exchanged glances.

"I think it's best we discuss this face to face." Calvin said. "I'll teleport you to our universe as soon as possible so we can discuss this with the others that we have at the moment."

"Alright, we'll get ready." Amy said over the MTM.

Suddenly the MTM beeped. "Urgent message, Urgent message!"

"What is it?" Calvin asked.

"It's a call from Socrates."

"It's probably some bait for a prank for me, but put him through."

Soon, Socrates's voice came through.

"Calvin, oh thank god I got to you." he said in a panicked voice.

"Socrates what's wrong?" Hobbes asked. "You seam nervous."

"There are a ton of aliens and robots outside the gate of my mansion, Earl's there too. I've managed to activate the prank traps and they're holding them off for now, but we need help now."

"Okay, but where in the mansion are you and Murray at?" Calvin asked.

"We're in my room and I've locked the door. Just come save us."

Socrates then hang up.

"Who was that?" Amy asked through the MTM.

"Socrates and Murray are in danger. We're going to help them, we might teleport you there if we need help." Calvin quickly said. "See you soon."

Calvin hung up and turned to Sly.

"Go out through the window, me and Hobbes will go through the doorway." he said. "Also, go to Andy's and get him and your friend Bentley."

Sly nodded and opened the window and jumped out, landing perfectly on the grass. He began running towards the direction of Andy's house. Calvin and Hobbes ran out the door shortly afterwords towards Socrates house.

* * *

At Haven City, Sonic and Keira had entered the City Guard headquarters and were in an elevator.

'I hope the city guard can give me a lead on what happened to Jak and Daxter.' Sonic thought to himself. 'They might be the only chance I have.'

Sonic then looked at Keria, who had a worried expression on her face.

"Look, I'm sure Jak's fine. I've seen him handle himself just fine, and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't let anything bad happen to Daxter." Sonic said trying to reassure her.

"I know that." Keira said. "I just hope they don't give us the worst."

The elevator then stopped and the doors opened.

The room before them was busy with activity. There were people viewing monitors and working on them. At the center of the room was a holographic projection of the city with a man behind it communicating with someone.

"Stay there and wait for extermination crews to arrive. If there are any remaining metal heads there, kill them." he said in a gravely voice to someone over the radio.

"Roger that." The other person said over the radio.

The man then looked at Sonic and Keira, who were approaching him.

"Kiera, what are you doing here?" He asked before turning his eye's to Sonic. "And who is this?"

"This is Sonic." Keira said indicating to the blue hedgehog. "He's one of Jak's friends from another universe. Sonic, this is Torn."

Sonic waved at Torn with a smile. "Nice to meet ya."

Torn continued to stare at Sonic. "I've heard a bit about you from both Jak and Daxter. To be honest, the first time I heard about it, I didn't believe it."

"What made you change your mind?"

"I caught a glimpse of you and a few others when you were cleaning up Haven after the whole umbra crisis."

"Ah, well I guess saving the universe with the help from heroes from other universes does kind of sound ridiculous."

"That still doesn't answer why you're here." Torn said now focusing on Keira.

"Well," Keira said looking away from Torn. "Sonic is looking for Jak and Daxter, and the last time I saw them, they were heading here since you had a job for them. So that's why we're here."

Sonic noticed that she didn't mention her own reason for being here. Which was fine by him as they had a common goal, him looking for the two was good enough reason.

Torn sighed. "I really don't know how to tell you this, but I haven't seen him since yesterday, when I briefed them on the mission."

"Could you tell us what that mission was?" Sonic asked.

"It was supposed to be a simple scouting mission." Torn began. "Simply observe activity of a reactivated KG bot camp, then report back here."

"Okay, they obviously went there, so what happened?" Sonic asked. "Why haven't they returned?"

"I'm not sure." Torn answered. "The last thing I received from them was a message from Daxter. But the signal must have been weak."

"Can we listen to it?" Keira asked in a worried tone.

Torn looked at her. "Are you sure you want too?" he asked. "Because what I've heard isn't encouraging."

"Yes, I need to know what happened." Keira replied.

Torn sighed. "If you insist."

He pressed a few buttons on the projector and an audio recording started playing.

The audio wasn't perfect, it kept chopping out at points but the voice that was coming through was easily identified as Daxter.

"Can anyone hear…Jak's been…..the one who took Ja….can't pilot the craft because of my heig…..send some…. found me gotta go."

The transmission was then cut off.

Sonic looked at Keira, she was clearly terrified by what she heard.

"They...They can't be dead right?" she asked.

Torn looked down. "Look we both know they're not easy to kill, but the situation isn't looking good.

"They've gotta be alright." Sonic said. "I might not have known him for as long as you two, but I know they've gotten out of worse."

"I know that, but I haven't heard back from any of them since that message."

"Haven't you sent a search team to look for them? Isn't that what people like this should do if someone like this goes missing?" Sonic asked.

"We lost multiple ships before we sent Jak to investigate." Torn explained. "We can't risk losing any more."

"Look, I need their help." Sonic said. "At this rate, I'd be okay if I only find Daxter there, because he could tell me what happened to him and probably help me out."

Sonic looked at Torn with pleading eyes. "Please, just send me to where they went."

For a few moments, none of the three spoke. The only sounds being the activity in the room, calls for help and the sounds of various computers.

Finally Torn pressed a button. "Torn here, get a shuttle ready."

"Okay sir, but where do you want me to pilot it?"

"I want you to go to where the ship that Jak took was last seen. There's also going to be a passenger coming along."

"Okay, I'll get it ready."

Torn disconnected the call and looked at Sonic. "I'll have someone escort you to the hanger. The shuttle will take you to where the ship Jak took landed."

Sonic nodded. "Thanks, hopefully they're alright."

Sonic then walked out of the room. A few seconds later, Keira began to walk out of the room.

"Where are you going?" Torn asked.

"I'm going with Sonic." she answered. "I need to make sure they're okay as well."

Torn stared at her for a moment.

"The hedgehog looking for them wasn't the only reason you came here, wasn't it?" he finally said.

Keira nodded. "I also came here to find out what happened to them." she said quietly.

Torn sighed. "You can go with Sonic to look for them, I'd take it if you only find Daxter. I won't stop you."

Keira nodded and left the room.

* * *

Meanwhile, in Calvin's universe. Socrates and Murray were peeking out the window of the former's mansion. Outside there was a small group of robots and aliens in front of their mansion, and Earl was leading the charge.

Luckily, Socrates had activated the security system and activated the prank traps outside. Which was keeping them at bay.

"You think the traps can hold them off until the others arrive?" Murray asked Socrates.

"Hopefully." Socrates replied. "I made sure to activate all of traps before I called Calvin."

Out front, one of the robots stepped on one of the stones of the walkway, which triggered one of the prank traps. Resulting in the robot getting bombarded with water balloons filled with ranch, causing it to short circuit.

Socrates and Murray watched as Earl shouted something to a group of aliens and they ran to the left.

"Where are they going?" Murray asked witnessing this.

"Maybe Earl ordered them to get some food while they wait us out." Socrates said in a hopeful tone.

About a minute latter, the two hear glass shattering and the expression on Socrates's face was replaced with alarmed.

"Oh no." He said.

"What is it?" Murray asked.

"I forgot our home security doesn't cover the attic windows."

A few moments latter they heard footsteps coming towards the room they're in and the door was kicked open, revealing two aliens who pointed their weapons at them.

Socrates put his hands up hastily. "Okay I'll confess, I'm the one who threw those water balloons filled with ketchup at those people near the general store." he quickly said

For a moment, the two aliens were confused by that statement. However, that left Murray with an opening to attack them and he did so, punching them in the face.

He and Socrates ran out of the room, with more aliens just outside and they fired at the two.

They managed to dodge the blasts, equally impressive to Murray considering his size and they ran down the stairs.

Behind them they heard one of the aliens speak. "Remember, Earl want's them alive, so make sure your blaster is set to stun."

"That can't be good." Socrates said as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Where are we gonna go?" Murray asked.

"We can escape through the back door." Socrates said. "Hopefully Earl hasn't put any guards there."

Just as they reached the back door however, the door burst open revealing more aliens. They turned around and saw even more aliens pointing their blasters at them.

"Uh, can I call my lawyer about this first?" Socrates asked nervously.

Elsewhere Calvin, Hobbes, Sly, Andy, Sherman and Bentley were running towards Socrates's mansion. In the case of Sherman and Bentley, the former was in Andy's pocket and Bentley was spinning the wheels of his wheelchair as fast as he could.

When they reached the mansion, they froze at the front gate.

Out in front of the mansion, there was a group of aliens and robots. A couple of aliens were holding Socrates by his arms, lifting him up so that his legs were just above the ground. Murray on the other hand was lying on the ground and being held down by several robots. Earl standing in front of the scene, tentacles behind his back.

"Well earth potentate." He said grinning. "We meet again."

"We haven't met in awhile." Hobbes replied.

"Yeah, we haven't seen you since that whole universe eater ordeal." Calvin added. "Where were you during that time?

"I was simply picked up by The Chessmaster and I have been planning something with him. But he was perfectly willing to let me work on my own goals."

"What exactly do you want?"

"Well it's very simple." Earl explained. "All I want is the release of Rupert Chill from jail, and the unconditional surrender of Earth."

"Or what?" Calvin asked.

Earl pointed at Bentley and Murray. "Or you and your friends will never be seen again."

There was a moment of silence after Earl explained his demands.

Finally Sly spoke. "What exactly do you mean by never be seen again?"

Earl looked at him confused. "Why do you ask that raccoon?"

"Well the phrase, never see them again, when used as a threat can mean a couple of different things. It could mean that you could kill them, or capture them and never return them to us."

"Look if you just..."

"You kind of have to specify these things you know. Otherwise, we don't know what solution is..."

"Okay, I'll specify it." Earl said in annoyance. "Release Rupert and surrender your planet, or they will die."

The aliens and robots aimed their weapons at Socrates and Murray.

"WAIT!" Calvin shouted stepping forward. "I'll free Rupert, in exchange for my friends."

Earl grinned. "Ah, so that's what it takes to break you. The threat of death for your friends."

"I also surrender Earth to you."

"Calvin wait." Hobbes said trying to stop him.

Calvin turned to Hobbes in sadness. "I'm sorry, but this is the only way."

Calvin then brought up the MTM and looked up at Earl. "Okay, I'm going to teleport him here, and I'll let you leave."

"Calvin are you sure about this?" The MTM asked.

Calvin nodded glumly. "I'm sure."

He then began fiddling with the MTM.

After a minute, Calvin was still working on the MTM

"What's taking so long?" Earl asked impatiently.

"Look I don't keep tips on the locations of my enemies." Calvin explained. "It's gonna take me a while to find him and teleport him."

Calvin continued to work on the MTM.

"I'm not on a time limit or anything am I?" he asked one of the other aliens.

The alien shook his head.

"Good, cause I don't work well under pressure."

"ENOUGH OF THIS!" Earl yelled. "YOU'RE STALLING!"

"I told you it's going to take awhile." Calvin said.

"Well with the device you have, it should have been done for now!"

Calvin looked down and smirked, letting out a small chuckle.

"You're right." he said. "I could have had it done in couple of minutes, but I decided to teleport a couple of people instead of Rupert."

"You..." Earl said seething with rage. "Tricked me."

Calvin shrugged. "I've been fighting you for a long time, I would probably find a way to free them. Just had to figure out a plan, so I stalled."

"Who were you teleporting?" Earl yelled.

Calvin smiled. "You'll see. MTM teleport them here."

"Righto."

A sphere of electricity then appeared in front of Calvin. With a flash of light two figures appeared.

Standing there were Tails and Amy Rose, ready for battle.

Earl stared at the group, seething with rage.

He was about to yell at the aliens and robots to kill Socrates and Murray when an electric dart hit him, stunning him.

"Sorry, but no one threatens my friends and gets away with it." Bentley said putting away his crossbow.

Sly, Tails, Amy and Hobbes rushed forward towards Socrates and Murray to free them while Calvin, Andy and Bentley tried to hold the other robots and aliens off.

Amy and Tails smashed some of the robots holding Murray down. With Tails using a wrench and Amy using her hammer.

Eventually they smashed enough of the robots and Murray managed to overpower the rest of the robots and fight them off.

Meanwhile, Sly and Hobbes freed Socrates. Sly used his cane to take out one alien, while Hobbes pounced on the other alien.

"Thanks Hobbes." Socrates said as he stretched his arms. "Those aliens were giving me an unexpected workout on my arms."

"Don't you get that when your setting up pranks?" Hobbes asked.

"Yeah, but being hoisted up by two aliens is a bit much." Socrates replied.

He then stared at the group of aliens that Calvin, Andy, and Bently were trying to hold off. The three were now being aided by Amy, Tails, and Murray. Earl however had recovered from Bentley's shock dart and was now trying to get his aliens under control.

"So, anyone have any plans of getting through these aliens?" Hobbes asked.

Sly got a smoke bomb out. "I think I might have an idea."

Sly then threw it and almost instantly, the area became covered in smoke.

Earl ended up coughing because of it. Eventually, he managed to get a sentence out.

"Switch to thermal, and get your masks on."

The aliens did so, seeing the red and orange silhouettes of the heroes that were fighting them, who were just as blind as the aliens once were.

A couple of aliens aimed at them with a stun guns when something unexpected happened to them.

Their goggles were suddenly covered with glue, with bits of balloon scattered in them.

As they were trying to clear their goggles, one of the aliens was suddenly yanked back from behind by the neck, slamming him to the ground. He was then whacked in the face to knock him unconscious.

The second alien had just cleared his goggles and saw the outline of Sly standing over the fallen alien.

Before he could fire his weapon at him, Sly charged at the alien and used his cane to disarm the alien. He then used the cane to hook the alien's tentacles to trip him and him him with the end of the cane to knock the alien out with another hit to the face.

Earl turned around and saw two of his aliens lying on the ground unconscious, with Sly standing there.

Just as Sly was about to charge at him, Earl got his blaster out and fired it close to him.

"I wouldn't take another step if I were you." Earl said coldly. "Unless you'd like a laser to your chest."

Sly froze, he didn't have any smoke bombs to spare and there was nowhere to hide.

Earl grinned as he began to slowly walk towards. "You know, I originally intended to capture that red tailed tiger and your hippo friend. But I think you will do just fine. The Chessmaster will be happy either way"

"YOUR NOT TAKING ANYONE ELSE!" A voice said from behind Earl.

Earl turned around just in time to see Amy clock him in the head with her hammer, knocking him unconscious.

Amy then looked at Sly. "You alright?"

Sly nodded. "I thought I was in trouble there for a moment. How are the others?"

"Well they're dealing with the rest of the robots, most of the aliens have also knocked out."

They turned and saw that the rest of the group were just finishing up, with Calvin using the transmogifyer gun to tun the last alien into a butterfly that simply flew away.

Sly looked around and saw that Murray and Socrates had managed to get across safely to the others, no doubt thanks to his smoke bomb.

"Okay." Socrates finally said. "Now that no one is trying to capture or kill us, could someone please tell me what is going on right now?"

"Here's the short version." Calvin said. "Jak, Ratchet, Daxter, and Clank might be in danger, Sonic fell into a rift and is in Jak's world, Eggman broke out of prison, and we think someone called The Chessmaster might be involved."

"So, multiple universes might be in danger again then." Sherman said.

"Yeah, pretty much." Hobbes replied.

"Well, we know the aliens came from Earl." Tails said looking at one of the robots. "But I've never seen these kinds of robots before."

"Maybe Eggman's trying out a new design?" Calvin said.

"Or Nefarious or Erol." Amy added. "From what we saw of them last time, they specialize in robot minions too."

As they were discussing this, Bentley was looking over one of the robots. As he stared at it, he began to recognize some of the craftsmanship.

"I think I might know who created them." He finally said.

Everyone turned to Bentley. "What do you mean?" Andy asked.

Using some of the wheelchair arms, he hoisted up one of the robot's torso's. "Sly, Murray, does this look a bit familiar to you?

Sly and Murray stared at it for a bit before it clicked in their minds.

"That almost looks like one of Penelopes robots when we fought her back in medieval times." Sly said in surprise.

Amy looked at Sly. "You fought robots in medieval times?"

"Who's Penelope?" Calvin asked.

"To answer the first question, long story." Sly responded. "As for the second question, Penelope is Bentley's ex girlfriend."

"Ex-girlfriend?" Hobbes asked perplexed. "What happened between them?"

Sly, Bentley, and Murray exchanged glances.

"Well, Penelope disagreed with me on something and decided to try and help someone screw up Sly's family history." Bentley explained.

"All that just because she disagreed with you?" Socrates said. "Bit of an overreaction I think."

Calvin then leaned over to Hobbes. "Hobbes, remind me to throw a large water balloon at this person when we meet her." He whispered.

Hobbes nodded. "From what I hear, she has definitely earned the title of 'Slimy Girl.'"

"So if Earl is working for this Chessmaster person, then Penelope must be working for him as well." Sherman said.

"Doesn't take a detective to figure that one out, Sherman." Andy remarked.

"Well, If they are working for The Chessmaster." Calvin said fiddling with the MTM. "Then maybe I can send him a message."

"You sure about that Calvin?" Tails asked. "We don't want to be in danger any more then what we just went through."

"Hey, he tried to have Murray and Socrates captured." Calvin said shrugging. "He's probably angry enough already."

Calvin pressed a few buttons on The MTM.

"Oh, formal and insulting, clever." The MTM said having read what Calvin typed.

A minute later, a piece of paper came out of the MTM, and Calvin read it over.

 _Dear Chessmaster,_

 _We're sorry to say that Murray and Socrates cannot meet you today. But don't worry, you'll have your chance to meet them because we're coming for you._

 _Sincerely,_

 _Calvin The Bold._

Calvin looked over the letter and nodded. "Yep, this will definitely do."

He got a piece of tape from his hypercube and taped the letter behind Earls back.

"That should get his attention." he said nodding.

"What do we do now?" Tails asked.

"Well it's pretty obvious isn't it." Hobbes said slamming his fist into his hand. "We need to get Sonic, find out where Jak and Ratchet are, rescue them, and beat this Chessmaster guy."

"Uh, couldn't Calvin just use the MTM to teleport these guys here so we can all figure out what to do?" Socrates asked.

"I explained this to Calvin before you called." The MTM said. "Somethings blocking my ability to teleport them here. It's almost as if there's something preventing me from locking on to them."

"So it looks like we're going to have to go to Jak's universe, find Sonic, and figure out what we're going to do about this." Andy said. "That doesn't sound easy."

"In my experience, nothing is ever easy." Bentley said. "But this might be the only thing we can do right now."

"I guess that settles it." Calvin said. "We'll leave in an hour to go to Jak's universe to get Sonic."

"Why an hour instead of now?" Amy asked.

"Well we gotta clean up Socrates mansion, I gotta duplicate me and Hobbes so my parents don't get suspicious, and we need to prepare for the trip since we might have to sink some time into this."

Andy thought about it for a moment before shrugging. "Makes sense."

Hobbes then noticed something, "Wait, where's Earl?"

Everyone looked and saw that Earl and the other aliens were gone.

"Huh." Sly said. "Maybe The Chessmaster teleported them away."

"Well, less stuff to clean up at least." Socrates said cheerfuly.

* * *

Back on The Chessmasters ship, Dr. Nefarious had just finished showing a demonstration of his new robot to Eggman.

"I have to say, I'm quite impressed." Eggman said to Nefarious. "I can see why you were inspired by one of my own robots."

"I've been working on this ever since The Chessmaster found us." Nefarious explained. "All I needed until now was a few additional parts."

He then looked back at the robot. "But now it's complete, and I'm anxious to test it on someone."

"And who might that be?" Eggman asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Why it's simple." Nefarious said, giving an evil grin, which was impressive for his robot body. "We have two people running around the ship."

Eggman thought about it for a moment before smiling. "Okay, I know the which robot to use with your own to fight them."

* * *

 _A/N: Well that was a long chapter. Though i can promise you that the next chapter will be a shorter one._


End file.
